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#11
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
"Jeff Richards" wrote in message ... The OP is not aware of the installation of the drive overlay because it was done so long ago and has been invisible since then, except perhaps for a small message at startup about booting from floppy. If he knew about it he wouldn't need to ask for help here. You don't need that confirmation from the OP to know that is the problem - you only need to look properly at the description provided - a system that was working OK, a rebuild of the boot drive and now a secondary drive with one large (apparently) unpartitioned area and a small unformatted DOS partition. It is an exact description of a missing overlay. Any work to recover files from that drive that does not involve reinstating the overlay is going to be dangerous. A typical scenario is that about 80% of the files look recoverable, which may tempt OP into doing the recover, when the data would be 100% recoverable with the simple installation of the overlay. However I have also seen conditions where 100% of the files are reported as recoverable because the track layout happened to match the FAT size, but of course when the recovery is attempted only about 80% are actually intact. OP has just re-built the boot drive. Therefore, once the data is recovered he can simply rebuild it again to get rid of the overlay. The drive IS recognised by the BIOS, as originally stated "My computer recognizes the former D drive...". Formatting the drive would not have removed the overlay, but booting from another device and running Windows setup would - OP has not stated exactly how he installed Windows. I strongly recommend that you connect directly to the MS server to avoid missing parts of conversations due to a flaky server. You have some very good insights and I agree that the problem the OP has *could* be due to an overlay...but there is no where he states that the drive had one. If you are still around Doug, this could be settled by just looking at the message on the screen as the machine boots up. It will say something like EZ Bios.. then specify which key to hit to boot from floppy (I forgot the exact wording.) If the machine has that message now... or if it had such a message before and no longer has it...then indeed it looks like an overlay problem. Again, there is no definite evidence of such an overlay... and there are other reasons why the second drive is unreadable. It could be something as simple as a loose IDE cable. The OP might have run fdisk and deleted the drive, then recreated it in error and not formatted it. etc As far as data recovery goes...I cited the case of a non-detected drive merely as a hopeless scenario... which this is not. Also as I said earlier...data recovery operations do not destroy data which are on a drive... it's more a matter of whether the data are recovered or not. Again...the existence of a drive overlay was never answered by the OP when you had asked that question. BTW: As flakey as my own news-server may be at times... I can see more messages on it than if I use the Microsoft server directly. I have no clue as to why...so I often use whichever seems to be working best at the time. |
#12
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
"philo" wrote in message
... snip If you are still around Doug, this could be settled by just looking at the message on the screen as the machine boots up. It will say something like EZ Bios.. then specify which key to hit to boot from floppy (I forgot the exact wording.) If the machine has that message now... or if it had such a message before and no longer has it...then indeed it looks like an overlay problem. IT WON'T BE THERE. The problem is that the overlay is NOT being invoked at boot time, so the partition is not recognised as valid. Again, there is no definite evidence of such an overlay... There is ample evidence - the partition was accessible, now it's not, although the space is still allocated to it. and there are other reasons why the second drive is unreadable. It could be something as simple as a loose IDE cable. The second drive is readble. FDISK reported the partitioning. The OP might have run fdisk and deleted the drive, then recreated it in error and not formatted it. etc I think OP would have remembered FDISKing his backup data and having to re-create a partition. As far as data recovery goes...I cited the case of a non-detected drive merely as a hopeless scenario... which this is not. Also as I said earlier...data recovery operations do not destroy data which are on a drive... it's more a matter of whether the data are recovered or not. Earlier? Only after I prompted you with a warning about how dangerous this is. Your first comment was "Google for data recovery software", and that carries a major risk that OP will think that data recovery software is needed and should be used, thus risking a large portion of his data. If you really meant "Run some data recovery software to examine that partition without attempting to recover any of the files but just to see what's there" I would not have commented, even though I think it's a waste of time. Again...the existence of a drive overlay was never answered by the OP when you had asked that question. I'll say it again - if he knew this was the problem he had no need to post his question. BTW: As flakey as my own news-server may be at times... I can see more messages on it than if I use the Microsoft server directly. I have no clue as to why...so I often use whichever seems to be working best at the time. Then you should be framing your replies on the basis that you do not have the whole picture. -- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) |
#13
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
"Jeff Richards" wrote in message ... "philo" wrote in message ... snip If you are still around Doug, this could be settled by just looking at the message on the screen as the machine boots up. It will say something like EZ Bios.. then specify which key to hit to boot from floppy (I forgot the exact wording.) If the machine has that message now... or if it had such a message before and no longer has it...then indeed it looks like an overlay problem. IT WON'T BE THERE. The problem is that the overlay is NOT being invoked at boot time, so the partition is not recognized as valid. As I stated before...EZ bios is not easy to wipe out, it will not be wiped out by a format. It will not even be wiped out by a fdisk /mbr I have tried it. I suggest you find a spare harddrive and give it a test if you don't believe me. EZ BIOS needs to be unininstalled by the utility that installed it in the first place. (though IIRC there are several different overlays and one setup program can remove an overlay created by the other.) I cannot imagine that the OP could have forgotten uninstalling the overlay. He seems to have done the reinstall just a few weeks ago... he certainly did not mention such when you asked him. snip and there are other reasons why the second drive is unreadable. It could be something as simple as a loose IDE cable. The second drive is readable. FDISK reported the partitioning. No, the drive is *NOT* readable to the OS. If the OP could read it why would he have posted he ___begin quote My computer recognizes the former D drive but when I try to read it I get a message that says D:\ is not accessible. ___end of quote I have absolutely seen drives with a partially slipped back IDE connector that were detected by the bios, yet had some type of serious problem that made them either unreadable...or in one case...made a drive read only. I am not saying that's what happened...merely saying there are other possibilities. The OP might have run fdisk and deleted the drive, then recreated it in error and not formatted it. etc I think OP would have remembered FDISKing his backup data and having to re-create a partition. You are correct I'd think he'd have remembered that... OTOH: I say he should also have recalled uninstalling the drive overlay. Unless we can talk to the OP and ask him all that he had done... it's still within the realm of speculation. As far as data recovery goes...I cited the case of a non-detected drive merely as a hopeless scenario... which this is not. Also as I said earlier...data recovery operations do not destroy data which are on a drive... it's more a matter of whether the data are recovered or not. Earlier? Only after I prompted you with a warning about how dangerous this is. Your first comment was "Google for data recovery software", and that carries a major risk that OP will think that data recovery software is needed and should be used, thus risking a large portion of his data. If you really meant "Run some data recovery software to examine that partition without attempting to recover any of the files but just to see what's there" I would not have commented, even though I think it's a waste of time. Again...installing data recovery software is only dangerous if it's being installed on the partition where the lost data exists. Since the OP cannot access his 2nd drive...I think it quite impossible that he install the software there. Software normally installs on the system drive by default anyway. Data recovery software , though of course may turn up nothing... generally works as long as the user has not attempted to write or alter in any way... the "troubled" disk. It does not hurt anything to try. Again...the existence of a drive overlay was never answered by the OP when you had asked that question. I'll say it again - if he knew this was the problem he had no need to post his question. BTW: As flakey as my own news-server may be at times... I can see more messages on it than if I use the Microsoft server directly. I have no clue as to why...so I often use whichever seems to be working best at the time. Then you should be framing your replies on the basis that you do not have the whole picture. As I said: It's the MS server that is giving me the problem... and that is why I look on both servers. Though I have once recently had a post dropped, then re-appear...Since I can follow threads... it's not likely I've missed anything. It seems there was nothing on this thread I've missed at least. I hope the OP returns but I think he may be gone for good. I think you and I both know that if the machine was sitting on either one of our benches, we'd have it figured out in a few minutes. Trouble-shooting "long distance" is tediously slow. Heck, with the machine on the bench either one of us could have tried about a dozen things in just a few minutes and have been done with it in the time it takes to make a single post. Nice talking to you at any rate. |
#14
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
Well since I always have a test machine on the bench
I decided to try out a few drive overlay utilites. I had both maxtor and WD and tried them both. Though one was called EZ install and the other was EZ drive, they were really the same overlay... But they did not appear to be the same as an EZ Bios utility I used a number of years back. Though installing the overlay took out any data on the drive which I setup with as dos... a second drive , D: was not affected one way or the other... and whether or not the C: drive had an overlay on it or not... nothing on the D: drive was in any way touched. I confirmed that all data were there. (with or without the overlay) I am going to have to try to find the old utility EZ Bios and if I can find it anywhere...may see if that overlay is any different... but I think they are all probably about the same. Well, since I got up at my usual 4 am... I am now at the end of my day...so no more experimenting tonight . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
#15
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
What did you expect to happen?
Please look at the documentation that was provided with that software. Installing a drive overlay ENABLES access to the partitioning that it supports. It does not require that either the boot drive or any other drive in the system is configured with that partitioning. If the installation overwrote the contents of the C drive that's because you asked it to set up a managed partition on that drive. Partitions created while the overlay is active may or may not be standard DOS partitions, depending on options chosen. However, if such partitioning does exist then the overlay enables those partitions to be recognised as if they were standard DOS partitions, and they are accessible to the OS. And, BTW, FDISK will remove that special partitioning provided the overlay is not active when FDISK is run. If the overlay is active it will trap the FDISK commands and either ignore them (most commonly) or convert them for the different partition structure (eg, FDISK /Status). In some cases, when FDISK is run without the overlay active it will refuse to remove the partition because it doesn't recognise the type - that's version dependant. -- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) "philo" wrote in message ... Well since I always have a test machine on the bench I decided to try out a few drive overlay utilites. I had both maxtor and WD and tried them both. Though one was called EZ install and the other was EZ drive, they were really the same overlay... But they did not appear to be the same as an EZ Bios utility I used a number of years back. Though installing the overlay took out any data on the drive which I setup with as dos... a second drive , D: was not affected one way or the other... and whether or not the C: drive had an overlay on it or not... nothing on the D: drive was in any way touched. I confirmed that all data were there. (with or without the overlay) I am going to have to try to find the old utility EZ Bios and if I can find it anywhere...may see if that overlay is any different... but I think they are all probably about the same. Well, since I got up at my usual 4 am... I am now at the end of my day...so no more experimenting tonight . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz |
#16
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
"Jeff Richards" wrote in message ... What did you expect to happen? Please look at the documentation that was provided with that software. Installing a drive overlay ENABLES access to the partitioning that it supports. It does not require that either the boot drive or any other drive in the system is configured with that partitioning. If the installation overwrote the contents of the C drive that's because you asked it to set up a managed partition on that drive. Partitions created while the overlay is active may or may not be standard DOS partitions, depending on options chosen. However, if such partitioning does exist then the overlay enables those partitions to be recognised as if they were standard DOS partitions, and they are accessible to the OS. And, BTW, FDISK will remove that special partitioning provided the overlay is not active when FDISK is run. If the overlay is active it will trap the FDISK commands and either ignore them (most commonly) or convert them for the different partition structure (eg, FDISK /Status). In some cases, when FDISK is run without the overlay active it will refuse to remove the partition because it doesn't recognise the type - that's version dependant. Let's back up and start from the beginning...as I am sure the OP is long gone...and this has simply become a discussion between the two of us... but maybe the OP will show up. Now. Since I was able to get a good night's sleep... I re-read your first reply and see the wisdom of it. I was able to find several of my Maxtor, HD install floppies and see that they have used both EZ drive or EZ bios as an overlay. Though I believe they are pretty much the same utility, EZ bios does give a boot screen which informs the user that EZ bios is installed, whereas EZ drive did not give any such message. So I think that your reply was an excellent observation... but I am still not 100% sure if it is right. Had the overlay been installed and the 2nd drive had indeed been setup from running fdisk within windows the configuration of the 2nd drive could have been dependent up on the overlay. I did not test that to see with my own eyes how it works. I am going to assume (for now) you are 100% right. Even if the OP ran fdisk and formatted the C: drive and even if he sys'ed the C: drive=== the overlay would *still* be installed. I just tested that this morning to verify. What I did was first setup the drive with EZ-Bios I confirmed that it was installed. I then booted directly from a floppy ran fdisk and deleted what fdisk now saw as a non-dos partition. recreated, rebooted, then formatted and finally sys'ed the drive. EZ bios was still enabled and installed. As I have mentioned previously...EZ Bios is pretty tough to get rid of. To removed it, one must first run the EZ bios setup utility and disable it. then exit and save... finally, re-run the setup and uninstall it. So I am sure the OP would have recalled that. It's been a while...but about the only other way to get rid of a drive overlay is to run the mfg's so called lo-level format or some other utility designed for "blasting" a HD. If you have a old spare drive , give it a try and you'll see what I mean. |
#17
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay
resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on the second drive. What you should have done for your test was this. -Create a boot disk with a DOS partition and an OS installed. -Install the overlay. Do not convert the existing DOS partition on the boot disk to a managed partition. -Create a managed partition on the second drive. -Use FDISK to confirm the partition details. -Remove the overlay. This might be possible with a boot to floppy (using the magic technique) and SYS C: or it might require FDISK/MBR or it might require using FDISK to remove the partition and reinstall it together with the OS. It's version and product dependant. Whatever, DON'T TOUCH THE SECOND DISK -Reboot. The overlay is now inactive and the partition on the second drive is inaccessible. There might be a small DOS partition in the unusable space at the end of the managed partition, but it won't be formatted. Use FDISK to see the partition details. -Re-install the overlay. The partition on the second disk will now be accessible and undamaged. The overlay is relatively easy to remove and can be done accidentally. Converting the managed partition back to a DOS partition without damaging the data is the difficult bit. Note that you could REALLY do the OP a favour if you developed a way of making the overlay active without installing it on the boot drive - eg boot from specially configured floppy. -- Jeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) "philo" wrote in message ... snip What I did was first setup the drive with EZ-Bios I confirmed that it was installed. I then booted directly from a floppy ran fdisk and deleted what fdisk now saw as a non-dos partition. recreated, rebooted, then formatted and finally sys'ed the drive. EZ bios was still enabled and installed. As I have mentioned previously...EZ Bios is pretty tough to get rid of. To removed it, one must first run the EZ bios setup utility and disable it. then exit and save... finally, re-run the setup and uninstall it. So I am sure the OP would have recalled that. It's been a while...but about the only other way to get rid of a drive overlay is to run the mfg's so called lo-level format or some other utility designed for "blasting" a HD. If you have a old spare drive , give it a try and you'll see what I mean. |
#18
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Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd ha
"Jeff Richards" wrote in message ... You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on the second drive. What you should have done for your test was this. -Create a boot disk with a DOS partition and an OS installed. -Install the overlay. Do not convert the existing DOS partition on the boot disk to a managed partition. -Create a managed partition on the second drive. -Use FDISK to confirm the partition details. -Remove the overlay. This might be possible with a boot to floppy (using the magic technique) and SYS C: or it might require FDISK/MBR or it might require using FDISK to remove the partition and reinstall it together with the OS. It's version and product dependant. Whatever, DON'T TOUCH THE SECOND DISK -Reboot. The overlay is now inactive and the partition on the second drive is inaccessible. There might be a small DOS partition in the unusable space at the end of the managed partition, but it won't be formatted. Use FDISK to see the partition details. -Re-install the overlay. The partition on the second disk will now be accessible and undamaged. The overlay is relatively easy to remove and can be done accidentally. Converting the managed partition back to a DOS partition without damaging the data is the difficult bit. Note that you could REALLY do the OP a favour if you developed a way of making the overlay active without installing it on the boot drive - eg boot from specially configured floppy. I am back at work now, so don't have time to run any more tests at the moment... but I have no reason to dis-believe anything you've said. My point was simply that the overlay is *not* easy to remove. I could *not* remove it by running fdisk and deleting the entire drive nor could I removed it by booting from floppy and doing a sys C: The only way of getting the overlay removed was by running the utility that installed it and disabling it...then exit and save. Then re-run the utility and uninstall the overlay. As I mentioned, the only other way I've been able to remove an overlay is by the so called "blast the HD method" with a the mfg's lo-level format or some other similar utility. Again...give it a try with an old , spare HD and you will see that the overlay is very hard to get rid of... The OP surely would have had to do so purposely. |
#19
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Why did reformatted C: I see what happened now
"philo" wrote in message ... "Jeff Richards" wrote in message ... You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on the second drive. What you should have done for your test was this. -Create a boot disk with a DOS partition and an OS installed. -Install the overlay. Do not convert the existing DOS partition on the boot disk to a managed partition. -Create a managed partition on the second drive. -Use FDISK to confirm the partition details. -Remove the overlay. This might be possible with a boot to floppy (using the magic technique) and SYS C: or it might require FDISK/MBR or it might require using FDISK to remove the partition and reinstall it together with the OS. It's version and product dependant. Whatever, DON'T TOUCH THE SECOND DISK -Reboot. The overlay is now inactive and the partition on the second drive is inaccessible. There might be a small DOS partition in the unusable space at the end of the managed partition, but it won't be formatted. Use FDISK to see the partition details. -Re-install the overlay. The partition on the second disk will now be accessible and undamaged. snip OK you are right!!!! Here is where I went wrong so I hope you can excuse me. If the HD has an overlay and one would boot from a floppy ...by passing the overlay's prompt to press control to boot from a floppy....then perform a sys C: since the overlay is bypassed...the sys C: command would *not* take out the overlay nor would there even be a C: drive (unless perhaps the RAM drive) Now...as I stated before, I have tried to remove overlays in the past and from a win98 boot floppy there are no tools to do so, other than by using debug. Also, as I mentioned before, even running fdisk /mbr will still not remove the overlay If one runs fdisk /mbr then reruns the EZ Bios setup it will be shown as installed and enabled HOWEVERIn my foolishness I did not realize that though it's still there... a new mbr is written...so the overlay...though still on the drive and enabled... is NOT the mbr that's in use. So reinstalling win98 from a bootdisk that had bypassed the overlay would write a new mbr and the overlay would not be on the MBR that's being used... even though the EZ bios utility still sees it as present and accounted for. Thank you for your patience as your scenario was clearly the most likely by far! (whew, that was a good one) |
#20
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Why did reformatted C: I see what happened now
"philo" wrote in message ... "philo" wrote in message ... "Jeff Richards" wrote in message ... You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on the second drive. What you should have done for your test was this. -Create a boot disk with a DOS partition and an OS installed. -Install the overlay. Do not convert the existing DOS partition on the boot disk to a managed partition. -Create a managed partition on the second drive. -Use FDISK to confirm the partition details. -Remove the overlay. This might be possible with a boot to floppy (using the magic technique) and SYS C: or it might require FDISK/MBR or it might require using FDISK to remove the partition and reinstall it together with the OS. It's version and product dependant. Whatever, DON'T TOUCH THE SECOND DISK -Reboot. The overlay is now inactive and the partition on the second drive is inaccessible. There might be a small DOS partition in the unusable space at the end of the managed partition, but it won't be formatted. Use FDISK to see the partition details. -Re-install the overlay. The partition on the second disk will now be accessible and undamaged. snip OK you are right!!!! Here is where I went wrong so I hope you can excuse me. If the HD has an overlay and one would boot from a floppy ...by passing the overlay's prompt to press control to boot from a floppy....then perform a sys C: since the overlay is bypassed...the sys C: command would *not* take out the overlay nor would there even be a C: drive (unless perhaps the RAM drive) Now...as I stated before, I have tried to remove overlays in the past and from a win98 boot floppy there are no tools to do so, other than by using debug. Also, as I mentioned before, even running fdisk /mbr will still not remove the overlay If one runs fdisk /mbr then reruns the EZ Bios setup it will be shown as installed and enabled HOWEVERIn my foolishness I did not realize that though it's still there... a new mbr is written...so the overlay...though still on the drive and enabled... is NOT the mbr that's in use. So reinstalling win98 from a bootdisk that had bypassed the overlay would write a new mbr and the overlay would not be on the MBR that's being used... even though the EZ bios utility still sees it as present and accounted for. Thank you for your patience as your scenario was clearly the most likely by far! (whew, that was a good one) BTW: Don't spend that bonus check... the OP may have had "Go Back" installed rather than an overlay G |
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