Power Cuts And Tale Of Woe!

[Beachcomber]

Living on a remote island in a remote part of the kingdom we get many power failures. I have of course got a UPS but TIT.

Some may days ago now, only just got back on line, the power once again flipped but this time the UPS couldn’t handle whatever the power company sent down the line and my HD crashed and re-booting only gave me a blank (not even the dreaded blue) screen.

I have a whole box full of “start up” floppies for just such an occasion but none of then worked like they should have. The only one that helped was Partition Magic that informed me “the drive has been improperly dismounted refer to our web site for a fix.

Great! Here in the low season there are not may places open but managed to find an internet shop that cranked up their computer. The Partition Magic web site informed me that I needed to do a CHKDSK on C:

OK back on my own computer I insert the MS-DOS disk and got the A:\ prompt but whatever I try to do a CHKDSK on C: I keep getting an error message. Now I am not very good with DOS and realize a dot or comma in the wrong place can mean failure but something should have at least got me out of the A:\ prompt.

So the question is, please, does anyone know why my computer would not accept DOS instructions from floppy boot? I have XP Pro SP2. Just for the record once I managed to get Windows up and running again I had no trouble giving the same instructions via. Start, Run.

Information for those still with me I resolved the initial problem by buying a new hard drive installed as “Master” with the original Master as slave and was able to CHKDSK on it that resolve the problem without any loss of data. I’m sure there must be a cheaper simpler solution.

Secondary question. Now that I have an extra Hard Drive I thought it would be a good idea to set it up with Windows as a spare incase the same thing happens again. But the thing would not work without the slave HD connected. I tried several times to reload Windows with just one HD connected but nothing happened. Why won’t the Master work alone?

Thanks in advance for any advice, help or suggestions.

Beachcomber.

[Guest endure]

What was the error message?

[KuBand]

So the question is, please, does anyone know why my computer would not accept DOS instructions from floppy boot? I have XP Pro SP2. Just for the record once I managed to get Windows up and running again I had no trouble giving the same instructions via. Start, Run.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Because the disk was not formated as a boot disk[fomat a: /s], and it is not that type of disk anyway.

The floppy disks you have are as they say, recovery disks.

So try this;

1. Boot you XP cd rom (put it in the hole and turn the pc on - it should boot if it is an original (or good copy)]

2. Select the repair / recover option

3. You will be asked for your recovery disks (the ones you mention above) so put them in

4. Recover your system

Good luck

[briley]

The original hard disc has a problem - OK blindingly obvious!

Your operating system can't 'see' it, whether you boot from DOS or any other method.

In this case I'd check the BIOS settings (at boot-up press Del on many computers, otherwise read the screen) and check that the disc is recognised by the BIOS. If it isn't recognised there then you had a dead hard disc, maybe a warrnetee swap out but I doubt it.

If it is recognised then boot using your floopy to A:

Check all the rest I write as it is just my experience - be it on your own head.

I am assuming that the bad hard disc is the ONLY hard disc in the computer. If you have other hard drives then the drive letters can be different. Doing what I say could delete all your data on a good drive. You are warned.

Before anything else I would try:

Check that the program fdisk.exe is on the floppy.

Then can you do C: and get the C:\ prompt?

If so do "a:\fdisk /mbr" (no quotes) -- would others reconfirm that this NEVER causes problems it just re-writes the master boot record on the drive?

If that does not work I would suggest you have lost the data on the disc - never to be recovered.

The rest of this will destroy ALL DATA on your hard disc.

Go to drive A (A:)

use format c: (assuming you have the format program on the disc in drive A)

If that works you have a working empty disc you can use as a second drive.

If it doesn't you might have to try using Fdisk to setup the drive then format it.

If that doesn;t work look for a dustbin.

[stumonster]

on DOS

when you had the prompt a:\ did you do a directory listing (dir) , this will show you what utilities are on the floppy and available for use - I have noticed many of the boot discs created by win?? do not have some utilities that I think are useful ( format , fdisk ).

as for your hard drive question. How have you got it set up - the average mother board has 2 IDE busses - IDE0 & IDE1 - to which you can attach 2 IDE devices ( hard drives , DVD/CD's ) - and your jumpers on the hard drives can be set to 3 positions - master , slave , cable select.

let us know your setup.

[The Coder]

So the question is, please, does anyone know why my computer would not accept DOS instructions from floppy boot? I have XP Pro SP2

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Simple: DOS does not recognize NTFS. Some of the other posts already describe how to best recover.

[lunatic69]

I am sure that your drive has some broken clusters. Try HDD Regenerator, it will fix your drive.

Get it here. http://www.topdownloads.net/software/view.php?id=8307

[Beachcomber]

Thanks for all your responses and though the problem is fixed now I do like to try and discover reasons and answers should same thing happen again.

The error messages I was getting were all to do with drive C: not being recognized – it just didn’t seem to exist. Though when I did a check with the Partition Magic rescue floppies it recognized C: and also checked the drive informing me I needed to do a CHKDSK which I couldn’t do as C: was not being recognized from the floppy DOS

Re-booting with XP-CD Rom – after checking the BIOS – but NOTHING happened. Yes the BIOS did “see” the hard drive.

I have 2 Hard drives and 2 CD/DVD drives. The HD’s are set up as Master and Slave on one cable as are the CD/DVD’s on the secondary IDE. This has been my setup for a couple of years with no problem.

As mentioned in my original post the trouble occurred after a power failure where C: was ‘Improperly dismounted” I’m sure the problem would have been solved had I been able to do a CHKDSK.

I think “Coder” hit it on the head that NTFS does not recognize DOS. That probably was the basic problem of not being able to get any response from C: via the DOS A: prompt.

Yes I could get dir. listing on A: but don’t remember seeing “format” or “fdisk”

After getting Windows back up and running I could do all the disk checks via. Start – Run and found no problem with any of the hard drives.

If NTFS does not recognize DOS (floppy – format – Create MS-DOS start up disk) is there another way to some basic control over C:?

Cheers All

[stumonster]

If NTFS does not recognize DOS  (floppy – format – Create MS-DOS start up disk) is there another way to some basic control over C:?

you might find something of use here

http://www.madboot.com/modules.php?op=modl...oads&file=index

[Guest endure]

If NTFS does not recognize DOS  (floppy – format – Create MS-DOS start up disk) is there another way to some basic control over C:?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

[Beachcomber]

Thanks,

Will follow through on the links.

Beachcomber

[The Coder]

In my experience, the partition magic rescue disk has chkdsk and other tools on it. Thus, you should not need a dos diskette to run chkdsk.

[Insight]

Have you told your BIOS to boot from CD if it's available?

If you can't boot from your XP CD after this, it could be down to having a dodgy copy - is this the case?

[francois]

hi'

just a tip or two ...

1.check the bios as said earlier

2.start in safe mode, if succes, yo may reboot normaly

3.if fail in safe mode, restart with win cd in and set the bios to boot from cd.

pass the screens until you arrive on the one asking you setup or repair, choose repair®, let it do it's job!

once finished, you'll have to go to windoz update again to dowload all updates available since Sp2 is out.

hope it helps a bit

francois