shell@hoptoad.uucp (Shelly Culbertson) (12/06/89)
I hope it isn't a breach of etiquette to post an appeal for help like this, but the only advice I've been able to get locally (Northern Humboldt County, almost Oregon) is "re-format your hard drive...". I own a 286 clone, economy model, monochrome, 640 K RAM and 30 Meg hard disk. (Also, 1 floppy drive.) It's worked quite reliably for me for the past six months. I use it mainly for text processing and for telecommunications. Well, yesterday it suddenly developed an inability to boot from the hard drive. When I turn it on, I can watch it check the RAM, and it tells me there are 0 verified errors on the fixed disk (both of these the same as it's always been), and then the system hangs. No prompt. The only keystrokes which have any effect are Ctl-Alt-Del, which bring about a repeat of this situation. I happen to have on hand a Falcon DOS 3.1 system disk. I can boot the computer with this in drive A. Then I can use Xtree to check out the hard disk. I don't have a photographic memory (in my head, that is), but everything looks about the same as it always has. Autoexec.bat is there, the path is there, command.com is there (of course they're there, I've never had any reason to mess with them). Once the computer has booted up, I can remove the disk from drive A and run it as I am accustomed to from the hard disk. It just won't boot from drive C alone (even though it always did before and I didn't consciously change anything....). Why might this be happening? I appreciate any suggestions. Even though I have most of my data backed up, I do not look forward to rebuilding 20 megabytes of the hard disk that I've learned to call home, if I must re-format it as I have been advised to do. And this might not even solve the problem anyway... Shelly Culbertson shell@hoptoad.UUCP voice: (707) 839-2265 "Fax me a donut!" -- Phil Spector
phil@diablo.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (12/07/89)
In article <9205@hoptoad.uucp> shell@hoptoad.UUCP (Shelly Culbertson) writes: |Well, yesterday it suddenly developed an inability to boot from the hard |drive. When I turn it on, I can watch it check the RAM, and it tells me |there are 0 verified errors on the fixed disk (both of these the same as |it's always been), and then the system hangs. No prompt. The only keystrokes Can you do a chkdsk after booting from floppy? Have you tried doing a "sys" from the floppy? Have you tried any of the disk testing programs, such as spinrite or dm? -- Phil Ngai, phil@diablo.amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil AT&T Unix System V.4: Berkeley Unix for 386 PCs!
shell@hoptoad.uucp (Shelly Culbertson) (12/07/89)
I first posted yesterday about my machine's refusal to boot from the hard disk. This is a continuation of that situation. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who sent me mail in an attempt to help. I've received some very well thought out, complex and articulate replies. I'm really touched by the way busy net-reading professionals are willing to go out of their way to give advice to a novice who all of them (except for one) have never met. I mean this sincerely! The most common advice I received was, boot with the DOS disk in drive A, then run "sys c:". The problem with this is, I get an error message: "No room for system on destination drive". All of my old system files are still there on the hard disk, and it won't let me delete them prior to trying to replace them: "Error: io.sys (or msdos.sys) is read only". Sometimes now instead of the cursor just hanging forlornly in space when I attempt to boot from drive C, I get the message "non-system disk or disk error". I guess this is an improvement: at least it's telling me *something*. I guess I'll try to find Spinrite next, as someone suggested. Any other ideas? Thanks again. Shelly Culbertson shell@hoptoad.UUCP voice: (707) 839-2265 "Fax me a donut!" -- Phil Spector On second thought, don't fax me that donut...might get my modem-to-fax connections all sticky....
phil@diablo.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (12/08/89)
In article <9214@hoptoad.uucp> shell@hoptoad.UUCP (Shelly Culbertson) writes: |"No room for system on destination drive". All of my old system files |are still there on the hard disk, and it won't let me delete them prior |to trying to replace them: "Error: io.sys (or msdos.sys) is read only". In that case, you need to either use a more powerful deleter (something like rm -f) or to change the attributes on the files to allow you to delete them with the regular DOS commands. I use MKS tools so I would do either rm -f or chmod, but I think DOS has a command to change attributes too. I don't think spinrite would help you boot from the hard disk but it is recommended as a gauge of the health of your disk. -- Phil Ngai, phil@diablo.amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil AT&T Unix System V.4: Berkeley Unix for 386 PCs!
keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) (12/08/89)
In article <9214@hoptoad.uucp> shell@hoptoad.UUCP (Shelly Culbertson) writes: >I first posted yesterday about my machine's refusal to boot from the hard >disk. This is a continuation of that situation. > 1. Go to the computer store and by Norton Utilities Advanced Edition version 4.5. 2. Boot from a floppy _with_the_same_version_ of_DOS_as_is_on_your_ _hard_disk. (The "no room on disk" message comes if you try to put later versions of hidden files on a disk.) 3. Install the Norton Utilities disk with NDD (Norton Disk Doctor). 4. Type "NDD C:" 5. Answer the questions, watch the magic, be amazed. 6. Get back to work from the hard disk. kEITHe
daved@acad.UUCP (Dave Duchesneau) (12/08/89)
In article <9205@hoptoad.uucp> shell@hoptoad.UUCP (Shelly Culbertson) writes: > > (stuff deleted) > I happen to have on hand a Falcon DOS 3.1 system disk. I can boot >the computer with this in drive A. Then I can use Xtree to check out the >hard disk. I don't have a photographic memory (in my head, that is), but >everything looks about the same as it always has. Autoexec.bat is there, >the path is there, command.com is there (of course they're there, I've >never had any reason to mess with them). Once the computer has booted up, >I can remove the disk from drive A and run it as I am accustomed to from >the hard disk. It just won't boot from drive C alone (even though it always >did before and I didn't consciously change anything....). > >(more stuff deleted) > >Shelly Culbertson shell@hoptoad.UUCP voice: (707) 839-2265 > >"Fax me a donut!" -- Phil Spector If the DOS floppy you have is the same DOS as what your hard disk's formatted with, you might be able to repair it simply by booting from the floppy, and entering "sys c:", which recopies the two hidden DOS boot files back to the hard disk. (They're usually IBMBIO.COM and IBMDOS.COM if you want to look at 'em with Xtree). And if this doesn't fix it, it at least shouldn't do any further damage. If you get an error "not enough room for system on destination" or somesuch, you probably don't have the same DOS version on floppy as on the hard disk. If the "sys" *does* work, you should then copy COMMAND.COM from the floppy to C:\, and copy all the other DOS files from the floppy to wherever DOS lives on the hard disk, just to be *sure* that the DOS you boot from is the same as the DOS whose, say, CHKDSK you'll use. Hope it works.... Dave Duchesneau daved@acad.com
phil@diablo.amd.com (Phil Ngai) (12/09/89)
In article <6478@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM> keithe@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM (Keith Ericson) writes: | 1. Go to the computer store and by Norton Utilities Advanced | Edition version 4.5. I just noticed that two of the disk utilities I have, disk manager and disk technician advanced are incompatible with the WD1006's customized disk drive type. Since my disk type is not supported by my motherboard, the WD's custom drive geometry feature is essential, but if I use dm or dta to scan for bad blocks, it gets wiped out. I'd really like to do additional bad block scanning, are the Norton Utilities good for this? Spinrite gets lost sometimes. -- Phil Ngai, phil@diablo.amd.com {uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil AT&T Unix System V.4: Berkeley Unix for 386 PCs!
jb@aablue.UUCP (John B Scalia) (12/10/89)
This is in response to Shelly Culbertson request for help, I tried e-mail 3 times with different paths and have given up. Please forgive the intrusion and you may hit ^N now... In article <9214@hoptoad.uucp> shell@hoptoad.UUCP (Shelly Culbertson) writes: >I first posted yesterday about my machine's refusal to boot from the hard >disk. This is a continuation of that situation. > I tried to get this to you on your request but, oh well. Your first description and later followup have me thinking that your disk's partition table is mismarked. Possibly, your C: drive partition is no longer marked *ACTIVE* and possibly has the wrong partition I.D. marked in its space. You can check if the partition is marked active by using fdisk or any good hard disk utility program (We like Everex's; it's easier to use.) It wouldn't hurt to tell fdisk to mark your first partition active, irregardless of what is says it is already and try to boot again. As to the partition I.D., I'm not aware of any Dos programs that give you the ability to check or change that, though I could be mistaken. However, a wrong I.D. should not stop booting irregardless. Programs like chkdsk, etc. will complain about a possible non-Dos file system and ask if they should proceed, however. Hope this helps, jb@aablue.UUCP -- A A Blueprint Co., Inc. - Akron, Ohio +1 216 794-8803 voice UUCP: {uunet!}aablue!jb (John B. Scalia) Just a little more nonsense to clutter up the net.
poffen@molehill (Russ Poffenberger) (12/12/89)
In article <9214@hoptoad.uucp> shell@hoptoad.UUCP (Shelly Culbertson) writes: >I first posted yesterday about my machine's refusal to boot from the hard >disk. This is a continuation of that situation. > >First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who sent me mail in an attempt >to help. I've received some very well thought out, complex and articulate >replies. I'm really touched by the way busy net-reading professionals are >willing to go out of their way to give advice to a novice who all of them >(except for one) have never met. I mean this sincerely! > >The most common advice I received was, boot with the DOS disk in drive A, >then run "sys c:". The problem with this is, I get an error message: >"No room for system on destination drive". All of my old system files >are still there on the hard disk, and it won't let me delete them prior >to trying to replace them: "Error: io.sys (or msdos.sys) is read only". > >Sometimes now instead of the cursor just hanging forlornly in space when I >attempt to boot from drive C, I get the message "non-system disk or disk >error". I guess this is an improvement: at least it's telling me >*something*. > >I guess I'll try to find Spinrite next, as someone suggested. >Any other ideas? >Thanks again. > >Shelly Culbertson shell@hoptoad.UUCP voice: (707) 839-2265 > >"Fax me a donut!" -- Phil Spector > >On second thought, don't fax me that donut...might get my modem-to-fax >connections all sticky.... If all else fails, since you can read the disk (I think), you might have to back up all data on the disk, r-fdisk it and then re-sys it and then restore all the files. I have seen sys fail when the boot tracks are trashed or other nasty things like that. Russ Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen 1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276 San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254
poffen@molehill (Russ Poffenberger) (12/12/89)
In article <28301@amdcad.AMD.COM> phil@diablo.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai) writes: >In article <9214@hoptoad.uucp> shell@hoptoad.UUCP (Shelly Culbertson) writes: >|"No room for system on destination drive". All of my old system files >|are still there on the hard disk, and it won't let me delete them prior >|to trying to replace them: "Error: io.sys (or msdos.sys) is read only". > >In that case, you need to either use a more powerful deleter >(something like rm -f) or to change the attributes on the files to >allow you to delete them with the regular DOS commands. I use MKS >tools so I would do either rm -f or chmod, but I think DOS has a >command to change attributes too. > >I don't think spinrite would help you boot from the hard disk but it >is recommended as a gauge of the health of your disk. > The problem is not with removing the old files from the drive, but the fact that these system files must occupy the first contiguous block on the disk. Once user data is written to the disk, those blocks after the boot files will become occupied, therefore leaving no 'contiguous' space big enough for larger boot programs. Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Schlumberger Technologies UUCP: {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen 1601 Technology Drive CIS: 72401,276 San Jose, Ca. 95110 (408)437-5254
doerschu@rex.cs.tulane.edu (David Doerschuk) (12/12/89)
>>|"No room for system on destination drive". All of my old system files >>|are still there on the hard disk, and it won't let me delete them prior >>|to trying to replace them: "Error: io.sys (or msdos.sys) is read only". > >The problem is not with removing the old files from the drive, but the fact >that these system files must occupy the first contiguous block on the disk. >Once user data is written to the disk, those blocks after the boot files will >become occupied, therefore leaving no 'contiguous' space big enough for larger >boot programs. > >Russ Poffenberger DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com Sorry, lost the original poster attribute. There is a fiddle for this if you own a copy of the Norton Utilites. In your root directory, create 5 or 6 directories with names beginning with: "AAAA". Then do Norton's Directory Sort (DS) on the root, and move those directories (empty) to the "top" of the root directory list. Now enter the main Norton Utility program (NU) and in the Choose Menu select cluster 2 and 3 and then select the "Information on item" choice. Norton tells you what file is occupying those clusters. As long as its one of the "AAAA" directories you created, you're fine. Go on checking clusters two at a time (4 and 5, 6 and 7, etc.) until you're up to about cluster 18 or so. If you find any clusters that contain files or directories other than your special "AAAA" ones, you must 1) exit Norton 2) make a temporary directory to hold the contents of the offending directory 3) transfer the contents of the offending directory to the new temporary directory 4) Make a note of the name of the offending directory (its now empty and will be deleted later). When you have all the clusters from 2 to 18 or so filled with either "AAAA" directories or empty "offending" directories, you're set. Here's the last step: Delete all the "AAAA" directories and empty "offending" directories. Now you've got a "hole" at the beginning of your disk drive that the sys command can fill with IBMBIOS.COM and IBMSYS.COM (not sure if those names are correct, but I mean the two hidden system files that DOS needs at the beginning of your drive.) Wasn't that easy? :-) You can get into additional trouble with the above method if one of the clusters you want empty has a file from a non-root directory in it: copy the file to a new temporary location but don't delete it until you're ready to delete all the "AAAA" and "offending" directories, otherwise one of your next "copy to a temporary location" moves will copy it into that cluster you just freed up (since DOS tries to use the smallest-numbered empty cluster first). Fun, eh? I've actually done this successfully, although it was probably not a particularly effective use of time! If you don't have the Norton Utilities (or similar), or don't feel like being a Disk Hero (tm), or feel that your time is worth more than $.23/hour, Plan B is: Back up the entire hard disk, then delete everything on it. Do NOT reformat it. Boot from a floppy, and "sys" the DOS files onto the hard disk. With an empty hard disk, you are guaranteed that the system files will land in the correct place. Re-load (I hesitate to use the word "restore") the hard disk from your backup floppies, and you're ready to go! BTW, I believe it is not actually essential that both IBMBIOS.COM and IBMSYS.COM (again, names?, not sure) occupy the first clusters on the disk in their entirety. I know that at least part of one of them MUST be in the first user clusters (it is cluster #2, isn't it?) but isn't it possible for the files to be non-contiguous after a certain number of clusters? Good Luck! Dave doerschu@rex.cs.tulane.edu
akcs.amparsonjr@vpnet.UUCP (Anthony M. Parson, Jr.) (01/03/90)
I've read that later Dos versions, like 3.3 or later, don't require IBMBIO and IBMDOS to be in contiguous sectors. So, change the attribs of the old hidden, system files, to unhide and un-system them. Then delete. Then try SYS C: May work at that point, if not, you'll need to delete the first program or two in the root dir. Just copy them to a new name, delete them, and restore the original name after the SYS C: