ECONO@latvax8.lat.oz (02/06/90)
Any advice with the following problem would be greatly appreciated. The last time I ran CHKDSK I received the message, "Probable non-DOS disk". Previous runs of CHKDSK had never reported this problem and after consulting my DOS manual, it seems that I have inadverdently destroyed the information describing the characteristics of my hard disk to DOS. The whole thing has left me very perplexed. How could I have lost this information? Is there any way I can recover it? Should I reformat the hard disk? If I don't, are there any nasty surprises waiting for me if I continue to use the system as it currently stands? Nils Olekalns Economics Department LaTrobe University Victoria Australia 3083
elund@pro-graphics.cts.com (Eric Lund) (02/10/90)
In-Reply-To: message from ECONO@latvax8.lat.oz
According to the Paul Mace Guide to Data Recovery, something has "twiddled"
with your File Allocation Table. The first value of the FAT is the Media
Descriptor byte. For a fixed disk (what you have), it should contain the hex
value F8. Something changed that. What you could do is run Norton Utilities
or Master Key and change it back yourself. PCTools will also do the job.
Also, Mace Utilities comes with a program NONDOS which does this for you. As
for reformatting, as long as you put F8 in the FAT, it's not necessary.
However, something wrote to the disk when it shouldn't have, and whatever it
was could do it again. I suggest you examine all (most) of your files, to see
if there's other damage. Then try to figure out what changed your disk. It
could be a problem with conflicting memory resident routines or CONFIG.SYS.
Whatever it is, backup your data after you've "validated" it. You never can
tell.
Eric
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