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#1
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MBR switch on FDISK
Appreciate the ref, Curt; the machine on which I had all my saved pages,
links, and threads is the one that went down. Thanks for your time, Joe "Curt Christianson" wrote in message ... Hi Joe, See this MS article on FDISK /MBR: FDISK /MBR Rewrites the Master Boot Record http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=69013 HTH, -- Curt--and NOT the MVP Curt Christianson (I wish!) W98 Support & Discussion: http://dundats.proboards27.com/index.cgi Windows How-tos and and Freewa http://mvps.org/PracticallyNerded/ Windows Help & Discussion: http://forum.aumha.org/ "jt3" wrote in message ... I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch on FDISK not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out partition table data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions on it, you lose the partition data. Is this true? I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old version of Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. Thanks for your time, as always, Joe --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.698 / Virus Database: 455 - Release Date: 6/3/04 |
#2
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MBR switch on FDISK
Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to Curt,
all my refs went down with that machine. The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot code is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which it normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though there's no disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the startup disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access something. But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there couldn't be much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who knows..). I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS failure--a little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year and a month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except all the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first boot of the day. I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then A and was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see the other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version (4.0) of Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything for MBRs, apparently. In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the only thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still there. Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, if I don't know for sure what caused the problem. Thanks for your time, Joe "PCR" wrote in message ... Enter "FDISK /MBR" This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the partition table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found Here are the warnings against it... (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all partitions. Then http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help to recover them. (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, a boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP Overlay Utility & FDISK (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't solve the 55AA thing.) (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match the hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go into BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you can DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. Well, Blanton says even that may not be true.) -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch on FDISK | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out partition table | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions on it, you | lose the partition data. Is this true? | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old version of | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | Thanks for your time, as always, | Joe | | |
#4
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MBR switch on FDISK
That's what I was trying to say: although the PM 'Recovery Disk'
(mainly a boot disk with PM on it) shows the partitions on both disks as present and with no problems, the boot disk DOS can't see them--not even C:\--even though if you don't use the boot disk, it's clearly using the C drive to get the message: 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter....' as I described previously. I think this may go back to a thread back in April, or March, in which you and cquirke and several other people got involved, but then it was a question of Restarting in DOS Mode. Although I finally thought that I had the answer in the question of the receipt of the Windows shutdown broadcast (and the answer may still lie there) I was never able to fix it, and other things (the machine I'm using now) came to the fore. Unfortunately, I only archived a few of the posts, and I was using the MS support interface at the time. The server doesn't seem to have retained any posts prior to the beginning of May, so I can't find the thread there, and it probably wouldn't do much good, since I doubt I could convince anyone that the two are related. Would take even longer to explain why I think so, and it's irrelevant, if the thread's not available. Obviously, this rambling reflects the state of my understanding, but it comes down to: If PM can see the disks and the partitions, (1) why can't a boot disk see any of them, and (2) how does one access anything on the disk if the boot disk can't see it. Along the way, I might mention that this is an installation without any older DOS on it, so that it would be deadly to overwrite IO.SYS with a DOS 6.22 IO.SYS. Any of the files would have to come off the W98SE installation disk, and that's a little difficult as it stands. I certainly don't want to reformat the disk. Thanks, Joe "PCR" wrote in message ... http://support.microsoft.com/default...41&Product=w98 Err Msg: The Following File Is Missing or Corrupt... (187641) - When you start your computer, you may receive the following error message: The following file is missing or corrupt: COMMAND.COM. Type the name of the Command Interpreter. It says... ......Quote article................... RESOLUTION To resolve this problem, use the MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1 to restart your computer, and then use the SYS command on drive C. To do so, follow these steps: 1. Place the MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1 in drive A, and then restart your computer. 2. Press the F3 key when MS-DOS Setup starts to exit MS-DOS Setup. 3. Type sys c:, and then press ENTER. 4. Restart your computer. ......End of quote.................... HOWEVER... here are some warnings... This will copy certain system files (IO.sys, Command.com & perhaps MSDOS.sys) from the Startup Diskette to C:\. (It also sets the BPB drive number to HD0, so that it is now in the bootstrap. It does so, no matter whether it is HD0. To boot it, one must still move it to be HD0, however.) You may now be able to boot to Windows, if all folders are intact. If not, some further adjustment need be done to "MSDOS.sys", that was copied to C:\. The floppy has just a shell of it. Well, remove the floppy & boot. Oh gosh! Here are some warnings from Jeff Richards, MS MVP W95/W98, about "SYS C:". DON'T DO IT, he says, if: (a) "Major errors were reported in Scandisk." (b) "A drive is moved from one machine to another", because of the next two, maybe. (c) "The BIOS setting for a drive is changed (eg, LBA to LARGE)." (d) "A drive that uses overlay software is operated without the overlay loaded." -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to Curt, | all my refs went down with that machine. | The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot code | is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which it | normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the Command | Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though there's no | disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the startup | disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to | simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access something. | But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there couldn't be | much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who | knows..). | I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS failure--a | little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year and a | month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except all | the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first boot of | the day. | I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then A and | was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see the | other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version (4.0) of | Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the | partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything for | MBRs, apparently. | In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the only | thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still there. | Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try | anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, if I | don't know for sure what caused the problem. | | Thanks for your time, | Joe | "PCR" wrote in message | ... | Enter "FDISK /MBR" | This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, | leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the partition | table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per | http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 | Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found | | Here are the warnings against it... | | (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all | partitions. Then | http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help to | recover them. | | (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, a | boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. | http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager | http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP Overlay | Utility & FDISK | | (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or | http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 | Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't | solve the 55AA thing.) | | (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match the | hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go into | BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you can | DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. Well, | Blanton says even that may not be true.) | | | -- | Thanks or Good Luck, | There may be humor in this post, and, | Naturally, you will not sue, | should things get worse after this, | PCR | | "jt3" wrote in message | ... | | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch on | FDISK | | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out partition | table | | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions on | it, you | | lose the partition data. Is this true? | | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old version | of | | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | | Thanks for your time, as always, | | Joe | | | | | | | | |
#5
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MBR switch on FDISK
Since you mention you can get to DOS with a boot disk, boot with the disk in.
At the prompt type: cd c: and press Enter dir c:\ /p and press Enter *Note the spaces after dir and between \ /. The /p switch will move the window contents one page at a time. Pressing ctrl+c anytime will get you back to the prompt. Does it show the files in C:? -- Brian A. Jack of all trades, Master of none. One can never truly be a master as there is always more to learn. "jt3" wrote in message ... Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to Curt, all my refs went down with that machine. The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot code is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which it normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though there's no disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the startup disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access something. But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there couldn't be much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who knows..). I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS failure--a little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year and a month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except all the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first boot of the day. I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then A and was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see the other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version (4.0) of Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything for MBRs, apparently. In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the only thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still there. Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, if I don't know for sure what caused the problem. Thanks for your time, Joe "PCR" wrote in message ... Enter "FDISK /MBR" This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the partition table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found Here are the warnings against it... (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all partitions. Then http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help to recover them. (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, a boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP Overlay Utility & FDISK (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't solve the 55AA thing.) (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match the hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go into BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you can DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. Well, Blanton says even that may not be true.) -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch on FDISK | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out partition table | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions on it, you | lose the partition data. Is this true? | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old version of | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | Thanks for your time, as always, | Joe | | |
#6
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MBR switch on FDISK
I am suspect of the 'new' battery, perhaps it was on the shelf for
several years before you bought it 'new'? I'd replace it and clear the CMOS with the jumper for that if so equipped. Manually short the battery terminals for at least 20 seconds if not equipped with a clear CMOS jumper. Then redetect the drive, etc. Blanton is right, some drive geometries are so close as to find the proper boot sector for several different drives and then fail to find the next sectors correctly which would result in missing command.com messages/prompts. If two new batteries don't get you going again right away, I'd suspect the mobo is failing. "jt3" wrote in message ... Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to Curt, all my refs went down with that machine. The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot code is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which it normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though there's no disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the startup disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access something. But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there couldn't be much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who knows..). I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS failure--a little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year and a month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except all the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first boot of the day. I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then A and was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see the other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version (4.0) of Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything for MBRs, apparently. In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the only thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still there. Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, if I don't know for sure what caused the problem. Thanks for your time, Joe "PCR" wrote in message ... Enter "FDISK /MBR" This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the partition table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found Here are the warnings against it... (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all partitions. Then http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help to recover them. (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, a boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP Overlay Utility & FDISK (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't solve the 55AA thing.) (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match the hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go into BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you can DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. Well, Blanton says even that may not be true.) -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch on FDISK | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out partition table | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions on it, you | lose the partition data. Is this true? | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old version of | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | Thanks for your time, as always, | Joe | | |
#7
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MBR switch on FDISK
Oops. I was too quick to post that quote of...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...41&Product=w98 ....It wouldn't be a "MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1" for you, but JUST a regular Startup Diskette. (1) Perhaps yours is bad, if it will not see partitions. Then... 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". Test the Startup Diskette. Boot it, put in a CD and "DIR" the CD. It will say which letter is the CD. (Otherwise, it is likely one letter higher than normal.) (2) Perhaps your partition are not the "type" that are recognizable by DOS. Then, you must wait for Blanton to arrive. (I still haven't assimilated it.) Does Partition Magic allow you to change the partition "type". NATURALLY, all one may safely do is to change it from a hidden type to it's proper unhidden form. One may NOT simply convert an NTFS to a FAT32, for example, by changing type! -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | That's what I was trying to say: although the PM 'Recovery Disk' | (mainly a | boot disk with PM on it) shows the partitions on both disks as present and | with no problems, the boot disk DOS can't see them--not even C:\--even | though if you don't use the boot disk, it's clearly using the C drive to get | the message: 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter....' as I described | previously. | I think this may go back to a thread back in April, or March, in which | you and cquirke and several other people got involved, but then it was a | question of Restarting in DOS Mode. Although I finally thought that I had | the | answer in the question of the receipt of the Windows shutdown broadcast (and | the answer may still lie there) I was never able to fix it, and other things | (the machine I'm using now) came to the fore. Unfortunately, I only | archived a few of the posts, and I was using the MS support interface at the | time. The server doesn't seem to have retained any posts prior to the | beginning of May, so I can't find the thread there, and it probably wouldn't | do much good, since I doubt I could convince anyone that the two are | related. Would take even longer to explain why I think so, and it's | irrelevant, if the thread's not available. | Obviously, this rambling reflects the state of my understanding, but it | comes down to: If PM can see the disks and the partitions, (1) why can't a | boot disk see any of them, and (2) how does one access anything on the disk | if the boot disk can't see it. Along the way, I might mention that this is | an installation without any older DOS on it, so that it would be deadly to | overwrite IO.SYS with a DOS 6.22 IO.SYS. Any of the files would have to | come off the W98SE installation disk, and that's a little difficult as it | stands. I certainly don't want to reformat the disk. | | Thanks, | Joe | "PCR" wrote in message | ... | http://support.microsoft.com/default...41&Product=w98 | Err Msg: The Following File Is Missing or Corrupt... | (187641) - When you start your computer, you may receive the following | error message: The following file is missing or corrupt: COMMAND.COM. | Type the name of the Command Interpreter. | | It says... | ......Quote article................... | RESOLUTION | To resolve this problem, use the MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1 to | restart your computer, and then use the SYS command on drive C. To do | so, follow these steps: | | 1. Place the MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1 in drive A, and then | restart your computer. | 2. Press the F3 key when MS-DOS Setup starts to exit MS-DOS Setup. | 3. Type sys c:, and then press ENTER. | 4. Restart your computer. | ......End of quote.................... | | HOWEVER... here are some warnings... | | This will copy certain system files (IO.sys, Command.com & perhaps | MSDOS.sys) from the Startup Diskette to C:\. (It also sets the BPB drive | number to HD0, so that it is now in the bootstrap. It does so, no matter | whether it is HD0. To boot it, one must still move it to be HD0, | however.) You may now be able to boot to Windows, if all folders are | intact. If not, some further adjustment need be done to "MSDOS.sys", | that was copied to C:\. The floppy has just a shell of it. Well, remove | the floppy & boot. | | Oh gosh! Here are some warnings from Jeff Richards, MS MVP W95/W98, | about "SYS C:". DON'T DO IT, he says, if: | | (a) "Major errors were reported in Scandisk." | (b) "A drive is moved from one machine to another", because of the next | two, maybe. | (c) "The BIOS setting for a drive is changed (eg, LBA to LARGE)." | (d) "A drive that uses overlay software is operated without the overlay | loaded." | | | -- | Thanks or Good Luck, | There may be humor in this post, and, | Naturally, you will not sue, | should things get worse after this, | PCR | | "jt3" wrote in message | ... | | Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to | Curt, | | all my refs went down with that machine. | | The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot | code | | is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which | it | | normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the | Command | | Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though | there's no | | disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the | startup | | disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to | | simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access | something. | | But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there | couldn't be | | much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who | | knows..). | | I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS | failure--a | | little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year | and a | | month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except | all | | the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first | boot of | | the day. | | I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then | A and | | was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see | the | | other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version | (4.0) of | | Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the | | partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything | for | | MBRs, apparently. | | In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the | only | | thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still | there. | | Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try | | anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, | if I | | don't know for sure what caused the problem. | | | | Thanks for your time, | | Joe | | "PCR" wrote in message | | ... | | Enter "FDISK /MBR" | | This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, | | leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the | partition | | table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per | | http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 | | Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found | | | | Here are the warnings against it... | | | | (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all | | partitions. Then | | http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help | to | | recover them. | | | | (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, | a | | boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. | | http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager | | http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP | Overlay | | Utility & FDISK | | | | (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or | | http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 | | Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't | | solve the 55AA thing.) | | | | (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match | the | | hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go | into | | BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you | can | | DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. | Well, | | Blanton says even that may not be true.) | | | | | | -- | | Thanks or Good Luck, | | There may be humor in this post, and, | | Naturally, you will not sue, | | should things get worse after this, | | PCR | | | | "jt3" wrote in message | | ... | | | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch | on | | FDISK | | | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out | partition | | table | | | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions | on | | it, you | | | lose the partition data. Is this true? | | | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old | version | | of | | | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | | | Thanks for your time, as always, | | | Joe | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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MBR switch on FDISK
I actually tried three different boot disks I have, all for W98SE, two
made on that machine, and one on this. They all did the same thing, and although I haven't tried them on this one lately, I suspect that it would net nothing new. The drives don't have any esoteric type of partitions on them, just standard DOS primary and extended on the 80 drive, FAT 32, the C partition about 750 MB and the E partition is the balance of the 8 GB Seagate drive, and the other is a 2 GB Quantum Bigfoot, FAT 16 and partitioned into 4 partitions, 1 primary, 3 in the extended. At one time, I was using a WD Caviar 850 MB as the C drive, and I had W95SR2.1 on it, with the Quantum providing the same as it provides now. When this happened once before, about 4 years ago, after much thrashing about I gave up finally, not knowing about the newsgroup as a resource, and bought the Seagate to replace the WD, installed W98SE, and when not only everything seemed to work, but I had less trouble installing and setting up than in any of the previous installs, I thought I had made a fortunate, move, however blindly. Now I should mention that which was discussed ad nauseam in the 'Restart...' thread, namely that the hardware is built on an Eteq mbd, VL bus, 486 DX4-100, and uses a Promise EIDE 4030+ VL Bus controller, which has its own BIOS, enabling it to do several things not particularly germane to the problem, except for the fact that it allows me to use a drive as large as 8GB, while the mbd AMI BIOS (1995) limits it to 2GB. Thus, for the previous setup in which I used just the WD and Quantum (same partns), the partitions for the WD were C and E (using FAT16 and trying to avoid cluster size inefficiencies) I used the *mbd BIOS* for the disk setup. Now it's been some while ago, but as memory serves, it was a *very* similar sort of failure, made worse by some other complications that I would rather not go into here. I wouldn't stake my life on it being the same, but I have my suspicions. Anyhow, when I went to use the Seagate, it wouldn't handle it--make a long story short, the AMI BIOS maxes out at 2.1 G, but the Promise controller BIOS, I discovered, could handle it, so that caused me to start using it. This requires, as you may expect, not setting it in the mbd BIOS, and activating the Promise BIOS which is done through an on-board program, and everything came up roses. Now, this time when things went south, the Promise BIOS program still had all the correct parameters in it, and I should mention that it is all automated, and so there isn't much possiblity of getting it messed up. The fact that the PM reading of the partitions came up with all the right data, suggests that the problem is not with the hard drive, controller, or any such thing. Since it must still be operating with IO.SYS, it's my bet that there's something rotten there, but I don't see how to get to it, short of trying to slave it to another machine. My reluctance there is based on the fact that I didn't have firewall protection on that machine, and since I have started perforce using this one (which has the EZ-Armor on it) I have been astounded by the number of times it has blocked some sort of invasion (not all of which are ISP pings). This makes me a little less secure in any assumptions regarding what caused all this. If I slave it to this machine, I suppose it should be secure enough until I attempt to access something on it. Question is, does simply reading the FAT pose a risk? If not, I could do a scan of the drive, once this machine booted. I'd still have the question of the MBR, but I expect I could look at it with Debug (if I can find it) and see of the EOS byte is there. I'd have to deactivate the primary partition, I guess. What happens if you have a slaved disk which also has a prmary active partition? Surely DOS 7 wouldn't like that. Thanks again, I appreciate your efforts and advice, Joe "PCR" wrote in message ... Oops. I was too quick to post that quote of... http://support.microsoft.com/default...41&Product=w98 ...It wouldn't be a "MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1" for you, but JUST a regular Startup Diskette. (1) Perhaps yours is bad, if it will not see partitions. Then... 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". Test the Startup Diskette. Boot it, put in a CD and "DIR" the CD. It will say which letter is the CD. (Otherwise, it is likely one letter higher than normal.) (2) Perhaps your partition are not the "type" that are recognizable by DOS. Then, you must wait for Blanton to arrive. (I still haven't assimilated it.) Does Partition Magic allow you to change the partition "type". NATURALLY, all one may safely do is to change it from a hidden type to it's proper unhidden form. One may NOT simply convert an NTFS to a FAT32, for example, by changing type! -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | That's what I was trying to say: although the PM 'Recovery Disk' | (mainly a | boot disk with PM on it) shows the partitions on both disks as present and | with no problems, the boot disk DOS can't see them--not even C:\--even | though if you don't use the boot disk, it's clearly using the C drive to get | the message: 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter....' as I described | previously. | I think this may go back to a thread back in April, or March, in which | you and cquirke and several other people got involved, but then it was a | question of Restarting in DOS Mode. Although I finally thought that I had | the | answer in the question of the receipt of the Windows shutdown broadcast (and | the answer may still lie there) I was never able to fix it, and other things | (the machine I'm using now) came to the fore. Unfortunately, I only | archived a few of the posts, and I was using the MS support interface at the | time. The server doesn't seem to have retained any posts prior to the | beginning of May, so I can't find the thread there, and it probably wouldn't | do much good, since I doubt I could convince anyone that the two are | related. Would take even longer to explain why I think so, and it's | irrelevant, if the thread's not available. | Obviously, this rambling reflects the state of my understanding, but it | comes down to: If PM can see the disks and the partitions, (1) why can't a | boot disk see any of them, and (2) how does one access anything on the disk | if the boot disk can't see it. Along the way, I might mention that this is | an installation without any older DOS on it, so that it would be deadly to | overwrite IO.SYS with a DOS 6.22 IO.SYS. Any of the files would have to | come off the W98SE installation disk, and that's a little difficult as it | stands. I certainly don't want to reformat the disk. | | Thanks, | Joe | "PCR" wrote in message | ... | http://support.microsoft.com/default...41&Product=w98 | Err Msg: The Following File Is Missing or Corrupt... | (187641) - When you start your computer, you may receive the following | error message: The following file is missing or corrupt: COMMAND.COM. | Type the name of the Command Interpreter. | | It says... | ......Quote article................... | RESOLUTION | To resolve this problem, use the MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1 to | restart your computer, and then use the SYS command on drive C. To do | so, follow these steps: | | 1. Place the MS-DOS 6.x Upgrade Setup Disk 1 in drive A, and then | restart your computer. | 2. Press the F3 key when MS-DOS Setup starts to exit MS-DOS Setup. | 3. Type sys c:, and then press ENTER. | 4. Restart your computer. | ......End of quote.................... | | HOWEVER... here are some warnings... | | This will copy certain system files (IO.sys, Command.com & perhaps | MSDOS.sys) from the Startup Diskette to C:\. (It also sets the BPB drive | number to HD0, so that it is now in the bootstrap. It does so, no matter | whether it is HD0. To boot it, one must still move it to be HD0, | however.) You may now be able to boot to Windows, if all folders are | intact. If not, some further adjustment need be done to "MSDOS.sys", | that was copied to C:\. The floppy has just a shell of it. Well, remove | the floppy & boot. | | Oh gosh! Here are some warnings from Jeff Richards, MS MVP W95/W98, | about "SYS C:". DON'T DO IT, he says, if: | | (a) "Major errors were reported in Scandisk." | (b) "A drive is moved from one machine to another", because of the next | two, maybe. | (c) "The BIOS setting for a drive is changed (eg, LBA to LARGE)." | (d) "A drive that uses overlay software is operated without the overlay | loaded." | | | -- | Thanks or Good Luck, | There may be humor in this post, and, | Naturally, you will not sue, | should things get worse after this, | PCR | | "jt3" wrote in message | ... | | Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to | Curt, | | all my refs went down with that machine. | | The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot | code | | is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which | it | | normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the | Command | | Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though | there's no | | disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the | startup | | disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to | | simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access | something. | | But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there | couldn't be | | much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who | | knows..). | | I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS | failure--a | | little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year | and a | | month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except | all | | the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first | boot of | | the day. | | I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then | A and | | was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see | the | | other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version | (4.0) of | | Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the | | partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything | for | | MBRs, apparently. | | In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the | only | | thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still | there. | | Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try | | anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, | if I | | don't know for sure what caused the problem. | | | | Thanks for your time, | | Joe | | "PCR" wrote in message | | ... | | Enter "FDISK /MBR" | | This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, | | leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the | partition | | table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per | | http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 | | Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found | | | | Here are the warnings against it... | | | | (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all | | partitions. Then | | http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help | to | | recover them. | | | | (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, | a | | boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. | | http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager | | http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP | Overlay | | Utility & FDISK | | | | (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or | | http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 | | Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't | | solve the 55AA thing.) | | | | (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match | the | | hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go | into | | BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you | can | | DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. | Well, | | Blanton says even that may not be true.) | | | | | | -- | | Thanks or Good Luck, | | There may be humor in this post, and, | | Naturally, you will not sue, | | should things get worse after this, | | PCR | | | | "jt3" wrote in message | | ... | | | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch | on | | FDISK | | | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out | partition | | table | | | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions | on | | it, you | | | lose the partition data. Is this true? | | | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old | version | | of | | | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | | | Thanks for your time, as always, | | | Joe | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
#9
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MBR switch on FDISK
The trouble was, that It *wouldn't* recognize the presence of the C:
drive, or any of the other partitions, on either of the two disk drives. Just insisted it was DOS on an A: stick all by itself. That was, of course the first thing I hoped for, and in fact, (see my reply to PCR's last post) as I now recall, the previous failure (4 years ago with W95SR2.1) did see the other disks, but there was another complication in that case. Probably the two are not that parallel, just a lot of similarity. So my problem is now as stated in the other post. Thanks, Joe "Brian A." GoneFishn@aFarAwayLake wrote in message ... Since you mention you can get to DOS with a boot disk, boot with the disk in. At the prompt type: cd c: and press Enter dir c:\ /p and press Enter *Note the spaces after dir and between \ /. The /p switch will move the window contents one page at a time. Pressing ctrl+c anytime will get you back to the prompt. Does it show the files in C:? -- Brian A. Jack of all trades, Master of none. One can never truly be a master as there is always more to learn. "jt3" wrote in message ... Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to Curt, all my refs went down with that machine. The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot code is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which it normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though there's no disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the startup disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access something. But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there couldn't be much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who knows..). I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS failure--a little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year and a month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except all the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first boot of the day. I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then A and was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see the other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version (4.0) of Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything for MBRs, apparently. In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the only thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still there. Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, if I don't know for sure what caused the problem. Thanks for your time, Joe "PCR" wrote in message ... Enter "FDISK /MBR" This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the partition table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found Here are the warnings against it... (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all partitions. Then http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help to recover them. (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, a boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP Overlay Utility & FDISK (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't solve the 55AA thing.) (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match the hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go into BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you can DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. Well, Blanton says even that may not be true.) -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch on FDISK | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out partition table | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions on it, you | lose the partition data. Is this true? | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old version of | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | Thanks for your time, as always, | Joe | | |
#10
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MBR switch on FDISK
You may well be right about the quality of the Li cell, it wouldn't be
the first time I've ended up with a bad cell. A little less likely with a Li cell, though, and I got it at a high volume place to avoid long shelf time. Nevertheless, replacement seems indicated. I don't know that it would affect what's in the disk parameter table, since that would be written after the Promise adapter (see my reply post to PCR, previously) had been scanned during POST and its subsequent initialization. Perhaps, but only if it had written some non-zero type to the disk type table. Thanks for your time, Joe "Lee" wrote in message om... I am suspect of the 'new' battery, perhaps it was on the shelf for several years before you bought it 'new'? I'd replace it and clear the CMOS with the jumper for that if so equipped. Manually short the battery terminals for at least 20 seconds if not equipped with a clear CMOS jumper. Then redetect the drive, etc. Blanton is right, some drive geometries are so close as to find the proper boot sector for several different drives and then fail to find the next sectors correctly which would result in missing command.com messages/prompts. If two new batteries don't get you going again right away, I'd suspect the mobo is failing. "jt3" wrote in message ... Yes that was what I was recalling something about--as I said to Curt, all my refs went down with that machine. The problem here is that this is wierd--it's clear that the boot code is working to some degree--'Starting Windows 98' comes up first, which it normally wouldn't show, then it comes up with 'Type the name of the Command Interpreter (e.g. C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)' cr'A' even though there's no disk, boot or otherwise in the floppy drive. Also, putting in the startup disk doesn't get me anywhere--after choosing boot without cd-rom, to simplify it, it just hangs with the floppy drive trying to access something. But it seems that this must be coming from IO.SYS, since there couldn't be much else doing it, if no COMMAND.COM has been loaded (of course..who knows..). I should mention that this started with an *apparent* CMOS failure--a little strange since I just replaced it with a new Li cell just a year and a month ago. Nothing very strange seemed to have happened to it, except all the drives (floppies, too) had been lost, and this was on the first boot of the day. I reset the boot order for it to boot A: first (had been C: then A and was able then to boot to DOS from the startup disk, but could not see the other drives (just A. I had previously installed an old version (4.0) of Partition Magic and used the PM recovery disk to find out that the partitions were all still there--but this version doesn't do anything for MBRs, apparently. In short, the EOS byte could easily be missing, AFAIK, and the only thing I can see at the moment is to use Debug to see if it's still there. Clearly, I would welcome any thoughts on the subject before I try anything. I'm a little leery of slaving the disk to my other machine, if I don't know for sure what caused the problem. Thanks for your time, Joe "PCR" wrote in message ... Enter "FDISK /MBR" This will rewrite the code portion of the Master Boot Record, leaving the Partition Table untouched, except it may muss the partition table, if there is a missing End-Of-Sector marker (55AA), per http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=149877 Boot Record Signature AA55 Not Found Here are the warnings against it... (a) If you have a boot sector virus, you may lose access to all partitions. Then http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html MBRWork "might" help to recover them. (b) If you have "overlay" code in the MBR, e.g., EZ-BIOS, Maxblast, a boot manager, then that will need to be reestablished afterwards. http://www.aefdisk.com/ FDISK & Boot Manager http://support.microsoft.com/support.../Q245/1/62.ASP Overlay Utility & FDISK (c) FDISK may be buggy. So? Use MBRWork to do it, or http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q263044 Latest FDISK, hoping this one doesn't have any bugs. (But it doesn't solve the 55AA thing.) (d) If for some reason the "geometry" setting in BIOS does not match the hard drive, then any write to the drive may be destructive. So, go into BIOS and have it "automatically detect" the proper setting. (If you can DIR the drive in DOS, then you have proven the geometry is right. Well, Blanton says even that may not be true.) -- Thanks or Good Luck, There may be humor in this post, and, Naturally, you will not sue, should things get worse after this, PCR "jt3" wrote in message ... | I think I recall reading someone posting that the /MBR switch on FDISK | not only rewrites the master boot record, but also wipes out partition table | data, so that if you use /MBR on a disk with multiple partitions on it, you | lose the partition data. Is this true? | I have a problem with a corrupted MBR (I think) and my old version of | Partition Magic doesn't do the MBR, apparently. | Thanks for your time, as always, | Joe | | |
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