crosenberg@cdp.UUCP (03/30/91)
An associate overseas posts this request for help: ____________________________________________________________ Somehow we've gotten a huge non-dos partition on our hard drive. FDISK and Norton refuse to delete it. I've tried to mess up the partition table with DEBUG but am either missing it, or there is an extra copy I don't know about...anyway FDISK still keeps seeing that non-dos partition. Is there a program that will zap it? Does anyone know how to totally munge the partition table and all copies so that nothing can recognize them? (we are beyond caring about the data). Any help would be most appreciated
valley@uchicago (Doug Dougherty) (04/01/91)
crosenberg@cdp.UUCP writes: >An associate overseas posts this request for help: >____________________________________________________________ >Somehow we've gotten a huge non-dos partition on our hard >drive. FDISK and Norton refuse to delete it. I've tried to >mess up the partition table with DEBUG but am either missing >it, or there is an extra copy I don't know about...anyway >FDISK still keeps seeing that non-dos partition. >Is there a program that will zap it? Does anyone know how >to totally munge the partition table and all copies so that >nothing can recognize them? (we are beyond caring about >the data). Well, there is always low-level formatting... But seriously, I've often wondered if there was a program that would just edit the partition table w/o regard to who supposedly "owns" a given paritition. Is there?
jcburt@ipsun.larc.nasa.gov (John Burton) (04/01/91)
In article <140700040@cdp> crosenberg@cdp.UUCP writes: > >An associate overseas posts this request for help: >____________________________________________________________ > >Somehow we've gotten a huge non-dos partition on our hard >drive. FDISK and Norton refuse to delete it. I've tried to >mess up the partition table with DEBUG but am either missing >it, or there is an extra copy I don't know about...anyway >FDISK still keeps seeing that non-dos partition. > >Is there a program that will zap it? Does anyone know how >to totally munge the partition table and all copies so that >nothing can recognize them? (we are beyond caring about >the data). > >Any help would be most appreciated If you can't get FDISK to delete the partition, perhaps it was installed with a different partitioning software (such as ONTRAC's Disk Manager, or one of several others that are available, but I can't at the moment.). If you have a copy of one of these programs around, give it a try. The next best bet in most cases (there are some disks that you might not be able to do this) is to do a low level format on the disk. Before you do this you *must* know the basic information about your disk/controller combo, i.e.: 1) Sectors per track (depends on the type of controller, MFM, RLL, ESDI, SCSI, etc) 2) Number of R/W heads 3) Number of cylinder (usually less than 1024, but not always) 4) Reduced write current starting cylinder 5) Write precompensation starting cylinder 6) R/W head landing zone There are other bits of information that is required depending on the controller and/or the program used to do the low level format (some controllers have their own llf rountines built in... Good luck... John +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | John Burton | | G & A Technical Software | | jcburt@gatsibm.larc.nasa.gov | | jcburt@cs.wm.edu | | | | Disclaimer: Hey, what can I say...These are *my* views, not those | | of anyone else, be they employer, school, or government| +--------------------------------------------------------------------+
dcc@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Daniel Creswell) (04/03/91)
Dare I say it HP have a utility written which does FDISK's job for it to a certain extent. It'll certainly delete any kind of partition without any problems. That just leaves one thing...How do you want itsent to you. P.S. It isn't public domain so I have to ask that you delete it afterwards (!). Of course if you don't I'm not sure what we can do about it! Cheers, Dan.