partitions

[JB]

After you get all the data from the drives and FDISK,
it is a good idea to write over the HD's to really
wipe them clean. I have FDISK'd over win98 and
reformatted then re-installed win98 from the CD and it
uses deleted  info from the first install! I think it
used just some minor settings, but still, be sure to
really wipe the drive clean. I think, that WD disk
will write bogus bits on the HD which really removes
any usable data. I think if you FDISK and format twice
it should be adequate but it may not. Writing over the
drive takes quite a while, especially a 80g but if you
have something else to do while it is writing, it will
go by quicker. I highly recommend FDISK, then format,
then overwrite, FDISK again and format again. It's a
pain in the ax to do but a windows HD is possessed!
Literally! If you aren't sure what caused the problem
with the HD in the first place, I would spend the
extra time to be sure you don't re-introduce a bug,
glitch or whatever. Then again if you are installing
Linux over windows, there shouldn't be a problem with
old vfat partitions.
jb
 
 Mark Robson <markrobson at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Yeah, I'm familiar with the secondary cd syndrome. 
> And the Win95 must be left over from the first o/s
> on
> the drive years ago.  Probably never did a low-level
> format while I upgraded through 98, ME, to XP, and
> just copied everything off the smaller drive over
> when
> I got the 80gb.  I am concluding there's no better
> solution than to pull out my data files and wipe the
> drive clean.  Too many trap doors and dead ends, not
> worth the time to fix them all.
> 
> Thanks all again for your help.  
> 
> Mark
> 
> 
> --- JB <mesimpleton at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I had a third HD on the secondary with the CD
> burner
> > as a slave and I had nothing but trouble. It was
> an
> > old 240mb HD which had to be formatted as fat16
> > which
> > may be why there were problems but it didn't make
> > sense that the system didn't accept it. I yanked
> it
> > out and all was fine. I was wondering how you were
> > able to install win 95 on the secondary? My
> limited
> > experience is that Windows will only install to
> the
> > Primary master (C) drive. Also Windows won't let
> you
> > install if any drive has anything but vfat on all
> > the
> > HD's. If I were in your situation I would probably
> > try
> > unplugging that third drive and see if the
> symptoms
> > change. Just make sure the main power to the box
> is
> > off before tinkering around with unplugging the
> data
> > cable to the HD, if that is something you consider
> > trying. If that isn't the problem, at least you
> > would
> > have the problem narrowed down a little more?
> > 
> > --- Mark Robson <markrobson at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Aha, right.  Found the disk, ran the full
> > > diagnostics
> > > - 2:52:34 elapsed.  No physical errors.  So is
> > there
> > > something about running two FAT mountpoints that
> > > might
> > > cause a system-freeze?   I can't see why would
> > Linux
> > > be affected by the bad win-drivers?  Is the
> > > partition
> > > numbering sequence relevant (definitely an
> enduser
> > > question, sorry)  Seems to be not reproducible. 
> 
> > > 
> > > If no obvious suggestions, no worries.  I'm just
> > > trying to get enough data off the FAT partitions
> > to
> > > format away the XP anyways, so if I'm okay to
> get
> > > that
> > > done, and then the issue is moot.
> > > 
> > > Is there a good newbie link on backing up to
> CDRW?
> > 
> > > I've saved the recent thread here on it, but I'm
> > not
> > > ADMIN enough to really get it yet.  
> > > 
> > > Thanks all again for the help.  
> > > 
> > > Mark
> 
> 
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