Message-ID: <01FD6EC775C6D4119CDF0090273F74A4021FB8@emwatent02.meters.com.au> From: "da Silva, Joe" To: "'opendos AT delorie DOT com'" Subject: RE: Hard drive question Date: Tue, 6 Mar 2001 10:10:50 +1100 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Hmmm ... This reminds me of a similar problem with the 4/92 edition of DR-DOS 6.0 ... I had a HD that had been formatted by M$-DOS 6.22 (I think) and couldn't even boot to floppy using this edition of DR-DOS 6.0. I eventually sorted this out using a strange combination of M$-DOS 3.30 and DR-DOS 6.0, and/or possibly temporarily setting the number of cylinders in the BIOS to under 1024, just to get things going (unfortunately, I can't recall all the details). Anyway, I later found out (thanks to Matthias Paul :-) that this stuff (ie. problem) was _supposed_ to have been sorted out with the special "PATDR6" patch/work-around, and also the 3/93 edition of DR-DOS 6.0 (and subsequent releases, eg. Novell DOS 7, etc.). Not having a copy of M$-DOS 6.22, and not wanting to reformat the HD again, I didn't get to try out this problem, using these editions, etc. of DR-DOS ... I wonder if there might still be a remnant of this problem in the current edition of DR-DOS? Incidentally, I should point out two things - firstly, the MB in question had an old BIOS that did not translate Int 13 CHS parameters (later, this was rectified using Disk Manager), and secondly, although I installed the 3/93 edition of DR-DOS 6.0, I found this was not as compatible as the 4/92 edition (with or without updates), so ultimately, I reverted to the "trusty" 4/92 kernel, etc. Idea - What happens if you temporarily set the cylinder count to less than 1024, then rewrite the MBR (using all DR-DOS stuff), then set the cylinder count to normal and rewrite the MBR again (rebooting after any changes, to be sure)? Joe. > -----Original Message----- > From: Thomas Webb [SMTP:tawebb AT earthlink DOT net] > Sent: Tuesday, 6 March 2001 2:55 > To: opendos AT delorie DOT com > Subject: Re: Hard drive question > > I have observed that drdos fdisk doesn't do the mbr quite the same way > as MicroSoft. On Toshiba lap tops in particular, I have to use an MSDOS > utility disk with fdisk/mbr first, then install DRDOS and everything > comes out fine. > > Dale Coleman wrote: > > > > Hi all, I ran into a problem that might relate to the one in this > thread. > > > > I have a home made computer that had 2 hard drives in it and I wanted to > > switch to the second HD that was the slave and use it to experiment with > > DOS and BEOS. It had no valuable info on it so I pulled the plug on the > > original main HD and switched the slave to master. > > > > I could not get DOS to install and work on this drive until I zeroed the > > first sector of the drive. > > > > More info on how to do this using Liniux is available at: > > http://www.cc.gatech.edu/linux/LDP/LDP/LG/issue36/tag/61.html > > > > I don't know how or if this can be done using DOS. But if you have > access > > to a bootable CDROM and a bootable CD with Linux on it this might be > worth > > trying. It worked for me. > > > > I hope this helps, > > > > Dale > > > > At 01:31 AM 3/5/01, you wrote: > > >Be more cautious. > > > > > >First, check with FDISK to just display partition info for the drive - > this > > >will tell you if the drive is accessible, and perhaps give some more > clues. > > > > > >Is the 586 MB old? Does it handle "> 1024 cylinders" OK? Did the > > >486 have Disk Manager or equivalent, to provide an "Int 13 upgrade"? > > >(just some ideas ...) > > > > > >Joe. > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > > > From: Mark at Cross+Road's [SMTP:mark1 AT mich DOT com] > > > > Sent: Monday, 5 March 2001 6:59 > > > > To: opendos AT delorie DOT com > > > > Cc: editor AT juno DOT com > > > > Subject: Re: Hard drive question > > -- > Tom Webb > Come visit at http://wordwonder.com