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Conference noted::ibmpc-95

Title:	IBM PCs, clones, DOS, etc.
Notice:	Intro in 1-11, Windows stuff in NOTED::MSWINDOWS please
Moderator:	TARKIN::LINND

Created:	Mon Jan 02 1995
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	3023
Total number of notes:	28404

2989.0. "HD not recognized by OS" by RICKS::WINDNAGLE () Tue Apr 15 1997 10:01

I just bought a used Quantum 270M hard drive and am having trouble with it.

I put it in a dos 6.22 system and the bios recognized it fine, but DOS couldn't
see it.  That is, I would boot to floppy, type c: and it would respond
with "invalid drive specification".

I tried booting directly from the hard drive and it would give a Win95 message
then ask for a path to a command.com file.  When I put in my dos 6.22 floppy
it said incorrect version of DOS.                                  

So I put it in a Win95 system and again it was recognized fine by the bios
as a 270MB drive, but Win95 recognized it as 2 separate 511MB drives.  The
first drive had a file called drvspc or something like that, which I deleted
because I wanted to get back to a noncompressed drive.  After rebooting, the
two drives still showed up as 2 511MB drives but now the drive names were
strange characters and they had files made up of strange characters.  I ran
format under Win95 and that didn't change the size.  I ran scandisk and it
ran fine through the first half of the drive, then gave an error for every
sector thereafter.  Or at least I assume it would have, it was taking forever.

So I went back to my bios and used it to do a low level format.  Now Win95 won't
recognize it at all, and if I boot from a DOS 5.0 floppy it won't recognize
it either.

I have learned that compressed drive should be uncompressed rather than deleting
the drvspc file.

Any suggestions?

/carl

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2989.1		FABSIX::J_SADIN	Freedom isn't free.	`Tue Apr 15 1997 10:12`	5
	I don't believe low-level formatting an IDE drive is a good idea...
2989.2		BHAJEE::JAERVINEN	Ora, the Old Rural Amateur	`Tue Apr 15 1997 10:25`	13
	�I don't believe low-level formatting an IDE drive is a good idea... ...unless you use the correct utility by the manufacturer (often available on the Web). Most current IDE drives just ignore low-level formatting (unless you use the manufacturer's utility) , but a 270M drive sounds pretty old (by PC standards) - don't know whether it would do any harm. re .0: Have you tried what FDISK says? Assuming there's nothing on the disk you want to save (well, it's most likely lost by now anyway), use FDISK to delete any partition(s), then recreate & format them (or rather it - I'd make it all one partition).
2989.3		RICKS::WINDNAGLE		`Tue Apr 15 1997 10:35`	6
	It's been a while since I used Fdisk, but I thought that DOS had to know that the drive exists before you can try to do anything to it. If I type sys c: it just responds with "invalid drive specification" /carl
2989.4	Sounds like you need to format	IROCZ::ALBRIGHT	She bop-he bop-a-we bop	`Tue Apr 15 1997 10:47`	10
	Having just been through configuring several drives for my new homebrew system your problem sounds like your drive has not been formatted even though you may see the C: prompt. The procedure is to go to DOS, use FDISK to partition the drive, and then format it, using FORMAT /s if your primary partion will be your C: drive and you intend to boot from it. DO NOT delete the DRVSPACE, or any other files DOS choses to put on your drive during formatting. Loren
2989.6		WRKSYS::INGRAHAM	Andy	`Tue Apr 15 1997 11:15`	7
	> It's been a while since I used Fdisk, but I thought that DOS had to > know that the drive exists before you can try to do anything to it. It's the other way around. DOS won't see it until you use FDISK and FORMAT. The BIOS must recognize it before you can use FDISK.
2989.7	It's..., Utility Time!!!	PCBUOA::MCQUADE	st*rs = 1x4x9	`Tue Apr 15 1997 18:36`	10
	I'm afraid to imagine what an MFM utility does to an IDE drive! Quantum use to have a low level format utility AND a disk partition utility (for severly munged partition tables..., which is possibly what you really needed). They aren't on the WEB site but they might still be up on the BBS. Kevin
2989.8	fdisk and format were correct	RICKS::WINDNAGLE		`Wed Apr 16 1997 09:44`	4
	Thanks for all the replies. You were right. All I needed was fdisk and format. This disk is fine now. /carl
2989.9	check out www.esc-ca.com	TWOTOO::SMITHP	Written but not read	`Wed Apr 16 1997 09:58`	7
	Based on the whats new section at www.esc-ca.com there are a couple of ASUS board that support K6 as well as ABIT. ESC is a small PC parts house and they are good about putting their RMA numbers for boards and chips as well as supply/support issues with PC board and chip companies. They dropped TYAN last year because of DOA and warranty support issues.