Fw: Fw: request for help

[bill at horne.net (Bill Horne)]

More on Mike Weissman's disk problem.

Bill Horne

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Weissman" <mjweiss at gis.net>
To: "Robert L Krawitz" <rlk at alum.mit.edu>
Cc: <hqtechteam at robertreich.org>
Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 2:34 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: request for help


> Robert-
>
> Thanks for offering to help.  Below is what happened:
>
> All-
>
> I'm cc'ing in case anyone wants a story of why backup is important,
> or in case it gives anyone any ideas.
>
> Thanks
>
> Mike
>
>
> 1.  Setup:  Windows 2000 box, home-brewed, 2 IDE channels on mobo; 40
> GB HDD ATA/100 on IDE 2, 40x CDROM (slave) + 24/12/40 CDRW (master)
> on IDE1.  40GB is partitioned approximately 5GB/10GB/1GB/23GB for
> system/apps/swap file/data, all formatted NTFS (who knows why I made
> the system partition NTFS...)
>
> 2.  Add 80 GB HDD ATA/100 (as slave) to IDE2, pull 24/12/40 CDRW and
> replace with 48/12/48.  System reboots fine.
>
> 3.  Upgrade Roxio Easy CD Creator to work with new CDRW.  Started
> burning a disc, but stopped in response to an error of some sort
> (something along the lines of CD was too full, too close to the 700MB
> limit).  Roxio didn't like something about this...froze up and
> stopped recognizing the new CDRW.  Restarts and reinstalling upgrade
> didn't fix this.
>
> 4.  Abandon that problem and use Nero to make sure /something/ still
> recognizes new CDRW.  Nero gets almost all the way through, then
> fails (buffer underrun or something, presumably related to burning at
> 40x).  Nero freezes, drive is stuck spinning at max for 30+ seconds,
> then blue screen -- kernel exception or somesuch.
>
> 5.  Upon restart, 40GB HDD fails to come up in BIOS.  Beginning of
> real trouble.
>
> 6.  Unplug/replug various cables, try booting with different drives
> online/offline.  Eventually 40GB comes up in BIOS and is recognized
> in Windows 2000 Device Manager, but no partitions are visible to Disk
> Management, My Computer, Disk Doctor, Win2K repair install, etc.
> BIOS error message:  "Disk I/O Error: Status = 00000100" is flashed
> quickly at startup.
>
> 7.  Starting from Norton SystemWorks CD is only good for running an
> AV check, so decide to install Windows to a new disk to work from.
> For some reason the install gets stuck (for 6+ hours) on "checking
> drive C:") on the just-installed 80GB HDD, so abandon that and use an
> old 2 GB disk that's lying around.
>
> 8.  Eventually get Windows installed and updated to be able to work
> with the 40GB drive a bit -- this is how I'm able to report on what
> Disk Management, etc can and can't do.
>
> 9.  Also, no partitions on the 40GB are visible to FDISK.
>
> 10.  Attempted Windows 2000 repair install to the 40GB results in
> "failed to ArcRead the boot partition to check for a signature"
>
> 11.  Most recently have been reading up in MSKB on how to use Norton
> Disk Edit to copy backup NTFS boot record stored at end of partition
> to beginning, over-writing trashed original boot record, but no
> luck...just lots and lots of zeros there.
>
> 12.  40GB "signature" in BIOS and Device Manager has become garbled
> somehow -- instead of reporting as "Maxtor [letters and numbers here]
> it now reports as [Maytor (note spellling mistake) [some numbers and
> letters] !!! [ the rest of the numbers and letters] !!!! (haven't
> counted exactly how many exclamation points).  Some fishy happening
> with Disk Edit...
>
> 13.  Have tried pretty much all possible combinations of master/slave
> IDE1/IDE2.  Oddly, the 2GB won't boot when moved to IDE1.
>
> 14.  Anyone ever stick a FAT/NTFS disk into a Linux box to try to
> pull data out that way??
>