"PCR" wrote in message ...
"Phil R." wrote in message ...
| Thanks for that.

You are welcome.

| Please see interleaved remarks...
| --
| "When I am right, no-one remembers: when I am wrong, no-one forgets..."
|
|
| "PCR" wrote:
|
| Yes, get the Seagate tool as Glee suggested. Although it won't fix a partition table, it will do valuable integrity tests on the
drive & re-map bad sectors.
|
|
| Been there. Unfortunately I've not been able to get any sense from the
| "quick test" utility. I was beginning to wonder if I've had a head crash, but
| somehow I doubt it. I'm sure it's just a problem in the mbr. ... more...

I see, here & in your response to Glee,...

.......Quote..............
I downloaded the Seagate test utility and got some
information, but the tests caused my system to lock up. I guess that the
tests confirmed that my disk is "ok" but the partition record in the mbr is
corrupt.
.......EOQ................

....it is questionable the Seagate tool ran well. I don't know what to make of that. I tend to think you need a clean bill of health
from it, though, BEFORE you can proceed safely to other procedures. I doubt a bad MBR would/could cause this tool to freeze. It's
looking deeper than the Windows file system & MBR contents. It's looking to see whether the drive can hold any data, not whether the
data is correct for Windows.

(a) Did it give you a message?
(b) Did it say "PASSED" anywhere?
(c) Did you give it enough time?
(d) Was it waiting for you to choose another option,
by using the arrow keys & ENTER?

Because you have sworn not to sue, I will continue, BUT, really, you should get that resolved. Maybe Glee can say how in his portion
of this thread.

| It's possible the PM error message is bogus. Windows may not care about it.
|
| (1) Was another utility used, such as BootIt NG, to adjust a partition after it was originally created using PM?
|
|
| No...

Too bad. It would have confirmed the message to be bogus. AIUI, BootIt NG can start a partition on a boundary that PM doesn't like.
Windows is OK with it, though.

|
| (2) Can you boot to DOS & see the hard drive?
|
| Yes...
| ISTR that the correct overall size is given, but that it seemed to be only
| one (unformatted) partition. I shall have to check again.

Check again! Write it down & post it. Post the full results to...

(a) FDISK /Status
(b) FDISK

For (b), use option 4, thus...

(a) FDISK
(b) Press ENTER to accept Large Disk Support.
(c) Select option 4 (Display Partition Information), & hit ENTER.
(d) Hit ENTER at the pre-printed "Y", to get the Extended too.
(e) ESC your way OUT, after jotting it all down.
DON'T try to do any partitioning! BETTER just post what you see!

Here is what mine showed...
NOTES: "PRI" is Primary, "EXT" is Extended...
"A" under "Status" means "Active".

Display Partition Information
Current fixed disk drive: 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
C: 1 A PRI DOS P C R HARD 7996 FAT32 42%
2 EXT DOS 11096
58%

Total disk space is 19092 Mbytes (1 Mbyte = 1048576 bytes)

The Extended DOS Partition contains Logical DOS Drives.
Do you want to display the logical drive information (Y/N)......?[Y]

Display Logical DOS Drive Information

Drv Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
E: C TWO 7996 FAT32 72%

| Particularly I
| don't want to risk the possibility of damaging any of my recent data - (My
| last full back up was about 3 moonths ago)
|
| At DOS, enter... FDISK /Status
|
| To get to DOS, hold CTRL as you boot & select "Command Prompt Only", or boot a Startup Diskette. Get a Startup Diskette
from
| http://www.bootdisk.com/ , if you don't already have one from "Control
| Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Startup Disk tab". Put the diskette in &
| turn on the computer.
|
| (3) Where is the "bad" hard drive now, as you said...?...
| | Using another hard drive and Partition Magic 7.0

You didn't answer this question.

|
| (4) Do you know for certain it has no drive overlay or 3rd party boot manager installed?
|
|
| ...yes...

That's good. That's one/two fewer considerations in whether "FDISK /MBR" is destructive. But WHERE is that hard drive mounted? Is it
in the Primary Master slot on the motherboard? Is it HDD0, I mean? You have to know it's letter also for "SYS".

|
| Then... "FDISK /MBR" & "SYS C:" may be the answer to the boot problem. But
| we need to know where the drive is mounted to issue the proper commands!
|
|
| http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork
| Free MBR utility.
....snip
|
| Quite so. The Microsoft bullettin Q69013 also warns against using fdisk/mbr
| if there more than four partitions exist. Unfortunately I cannot remember if
| the affected hdd contained just c:, d:, e:, and f:, or g: as well. I may risk
| it...

It's the number of PRIMARY partitions that matter. An Extended partition counts as one primary, no matter how many volumes it
contains. Each volume would get a separate letter in Windows. Show us the results of FDISK per above.

Windows won't recognize more than four primary partitions per hard drive. If you have more than four, they were invisible without a
3rd party boot manager.

| --
| Thanks or Good Luck,
| There may be humor in this post, and,
| Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this,
|
| Certainly not!!

O-KAY-EEE, then!

|
| PCR
|
| [rest snipped]