adonis@tahoe.unr.edu (Derrick Hamner) (07/17/88)
If you are familiar with the FAT and/or the disk organizing program DOG (v 1.01a) I would appreciate any help you can give on a problem of mine. I am currently trying to get DOG v1.01a (a disk organizer) to work on my system. First, let me say that from what I can see of this program, it is unbelievably good. This makes my problem all the more frustrating. The program reports a "linkage error in FAT". It then says to run "chkdsk /f". This I do, but as far as chkdsk is concerned, everything is aok. DOG will run if I give it a command line order instead of using order.dog (i.e. Simply make all file congruent, rather than putting them in a special order, or putting fragmented file on the inside tracks of the disk.), making the problem all the more confusing. My hard drive is a Seagate ST-251 and I am using "Disk Manager" from Ontrack Software to get a ~40Mb partition. I assume that the FAT is the same as in normal DOS because chkdsk likes it, as well as some other FAT fixing/viewing programs I have gotten from BBS's. If you know of a bug in DOG (hopefully of a fix as well :-), or you know how I might fix my FAT (is anything really wrong?), or you have a program that might help me fix my FAT, I would really appreciate the help (along with any other help you care to offer :-). (Unbelievable sentence eh? :-) E-mail or the usenet is fine. I read both. :-) Derrick -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | There are more important things to be | Derrick Hamner | | than responsible. | tahoe.unr.edu.UUCP!adonis | -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
bw@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Bill Wilhelmi) (07/27/88)
I haven't used DOG, but I did have a file cross-linked with a directory once.
To rectify the situation, I used the FAT editor in the Norton Utilities
Advanced Edition to track down the links. I was successful at restoring
my file, but it wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done. Anyhow, I
recommend the Norton Utilities for FAT recovery.
Bill Wilhelmi
Hewlett-Packard Company
Corvallis Workstation Operation
Corvallis, Oregon
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jcmorris@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Joseph C. Morris) (07/28/88)
In article <1180039@hpcvlx.HP.COM> bw@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Bill Wilhelmi) writes: > Anyhow, I >recommend the Norton Utilities for FAT recovery. So do I, but with one word of warning: Norton won't handle a disk with a loop in the FAT unless you use the /m switch which (I think) is part of the Advanced Edition only. At init time NU builds an allocation table and doesn't recognize a trashed FAT, resulting in a loop. Once you figure out which directory allocation is looping and patch that then NU works wonders. The problem in my case was a FAT with an error which should have been trivial to detect: a file (actually, a subdirectory) had a FAT entry which pointed to itself as a result of my finger check while trying to rebuild a disk which had been scribbled on as a result of problems with an InBoard/386 system. The directory was identified because CHKDSK looped sending nastygrams about file allocation errors... Joe Morris
chasm@killer.DALLAS.TX.US (Charles Marslett) (07/29/88)
In article <37242@linus.UUCP>, jcmorris@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Joseph C. Morris) writes: > In article <1180039@hpcvlx.HP.COM> bw@hpcvlx.HP.COM (Bill Wilhelmi) writes: > > Anyhow, I > >recommend the Norton Utilities for FAT recovery. > > So do I, but with one word of warning: Norton won't handle a disk with a > loop in the FAT unless you use the /m switch which (I think) is part of the > Advanced Edition only. At init time NU builds an allocation table and doesn't > recognize a trashed FAT, resulting in a loop. Once you figure out which > directory allocation is looping and patch that then NU works wonders. > Joe Morris I have written a "freeware" disk check program that does no repairs -- just reports problems, and I would like comments from people who have used other programs to identify file system problems and fixed them. What do you want such a program to do, what is dangerous to do, and what versions of DOS are the most difficult to work with (the Plus Card has been mentioned to me several times). The check program is submitted to the binaries group, and I am working on the repair version (which I hope to be able to sell . . .). I split the functionality up this way because something picked up on the net can get run without much thought -- and a read only program seems to be a much safer one than a program that mucks about in the partition tables and in the FATs and directory sectors! Two questions for any MSDOS file system gurus out there: (1) Does PCDOS really not have any information in the partition tables for the next-to-last extended partition? -- I cannot find it anywhere, it seems that I have to create the partition table from the hole left before the last logical partition in the extended partition area. (2) What do the new DOS 4.0 partition tables and boot/FAT sectors look like? Ciao, Chasm@killer.dallas.tx.us