partitions

[Mark Robson]

Steamroller over the Gates?  A cartoon image that
makes me laugh.  

Good advice, though.  Likely the source of all these
ills can be traced to the possessed nature of the Wind
O/S, as you point out.

Mark


--- JB <mesimpleton at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 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
> > 
> > 
> > __________________________________
> > Do you Yahoo!?
> > Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site
> > design software
> > http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com


=====

Mark Robson



__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com