ggray@wpi.wpi.edu (Gary Gray) (05/18/89)
I have an actual IBM XT which has had a hard disk crash. Fortunatly, the hard disk was backed up the night before so the amount of data lost was zero. My problem now is reformatting the drive. Normal re-formats won't work because the partition information table seems to be wiped, so the computer doesn't even recognize that the drive is there. A freind told me that a low level format could be done on most hard drives by doing a "g c800:5" from debug in order to get to the hard disk controllers format routine. Unfortunatly this appears to not be supported on my IBM controller card, since this operation only hangs the computer and does nothing to the drive. Is there a different entry point for the IBM controller? Is there some easily obtainable (i.e. ftp) low level reformatter I can use? Is the failure of the call to c800:5 more ominous than it sounds? Thank you... -- WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE (sounds more impressive than it really is) _ |I-net ggray@wpi.wpi.edu <Preferred> / ar |/ |bitnet ggray@wpi.bitnet <endangered.. Bye bye bitnet> /_7 ra / |GEnie G.GRAY6 <infrequently used>
mandel@well.UUCP (Tom Mandel) (05/20/89)
To attempt a low level format of your crashed XT hard disk you will need the correct software to do this. The procedure you indicated works with some controller cards (Western Electric, I believe), but not necessarily with others. If you have a pure IBM machine, you should get the appropriate low level formatting software from them...or an IBM dealer. It may well be that a low level format will fail. If you really had a physical crash, then you'll find this out when you try to reformat at the lower level, as you will start seeing lots of errors in certain parts of the disk. If that is the case, throw your disk away and get a new one. As a general rule of thumb, disks that start suffering errors at that level should be trashed and replaced. --Tom Mandel (a sufferer of several recent hard disk crashes)