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#1
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Rediculously Simple Question
I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no
computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy |
#2
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Just download the disk utility from the manufacturer of the drive. It
should be able to fit on a floppy and zero out ALL sectors on the disk. "Jeremy" wrote in message ... I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy |
#3
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Jeremy, it's the age old dilemma of millions of bytes as compared to mb. A
MB is 1024KB. If you divide 1,457,664 bytes by 1024 KB you get 1423.5KB or 1.42MB, not exactly the 1.38MB in the properties screen but pretty dam close. So is your 1.41MB file 1,410,000 bytes or is it 1.41MB? If it's 1,410,000 bytes, then it should fit but I suspect not. There's nothing wrong with your floppy drive or any of your floppies, that's just the way it works. Don't know if I explained this correctly but that is my take on it. You also mentioned having to boot from the floppy, a floppy with 1,457,664 bytes sure isn't bootable. You need a system on it, just copying a file to it won allow it to boot. There is a program that allows you to create the same floppy with approximately 1.6MB of space using the same floppy. I can hunt it down for you if you want. Have you tried running FDISK on that drive, deleting the partition and then re-creating it? "Jeremy" wrote in message ... I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy |
#4
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Normally a drive manufacturer has utilities to write zeros to the beginning
or the entire drive. At the front of the drive important information about how the file system is set up and how the partitions are set up. I dont know much more than this term sometimes called the MBR or master boot record. I am not even sure if that is the front of the drive. This is a good bit of reading on Floppy IDE and SCSI Disks at this site call PC Lube and Tune At Yale: http://www.yale.edu/pclt/BOOT/DISKDEV.HTM It explains things a little more carefully. The first 512 bytes are used by the drive initialization. Then there is an MBR also. After reading this information, I would say you need a floppy from another computer containing an emergency boot disk for windows that is virus free. What I would do is Write Protect one emergency boot disk. This makes it so it can not be written to. Then try to use the FDISK program to completely make new partitions. You can back up one step from here by using a utility from the Disk Manufacturer that will write all zeros to the beginning of the drive. That you have to get from the manufacturer usually downloadable from their website. FDISK makes new partitions with no file system. After than you can add the file system by using the operating systems FORMAT command. There are some file utilities that will force a zero to be written to each byte so that every bit will be written to. Using these utilities from the manufacturer the entire drive can be formatted and written to including the first 512 bytes. The US Government uses a utility called KillDisk that you can look for on the Internet also. KILLDISK is a program the government uses to destroy classified data on hard drives. It is suppose to change repeatedly every byte of data on the drive. "Jeremy" wrote in message ... I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy |
#5
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On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 16:43:26 -0700, "Jeremy"
wrote: I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy 1.44MB is the unformatted capacity. After formatting to FAT16 it'll be 1.38MB. Since you've already tried formatting the hard drive, I"ll assume you're not trying to preserve/recover any data from it? Boot to a windows startup floppy, FDISK /MBR the hard drive at the prompt. Then run FDISK again and see what the partitions look like, and if all space is accounted for. Given that you just received the drive, at this point it'd be good to run the manufacturer's diagnostics to confirm that the drive is viable, in proper working order. Just be sure to boot from the floppy, NOT that hard drive (I'm suggesting that you don't need NOD32). Dave |
#6
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It is not unformatted capacity! 1.44 is the formatted capacity in megabytes
(where m=1,000,000). All thes sizes are correct, it is the units definition that is used. http://www.pcguide.com/ref/fdd/formatSummary-c.html Unformatted Capacity ~2 MB Formatted Capacity (binary kilobytes) 1,440 Formatted Capacity (bytes) 1,474,560 File System Overhead (bytes) 16,896 Total Usable Capacity (bytes) 1,457,664 Total Usable Capacity (binary KB) 1,423.5 Total Usable Capacity (binary MB) 1.390 "kony" wrote in message ... On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 16:43:26 -0700, "Jeremy" wrote: I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy 1.44MB is the unformatted capacity. After formatting to FAT16 it'll be 1.38MB. Since you've already tried formatting the hard drive, I"ll assume you're not trying to preserve/recover any data from it? Boot to a windows startup floppy, FDISK /MBR the hard drive at the prompt. Then run FDISK again and see what the partitions look like, and if all space is accounted for. Given that you just received the drive, at this point it'd be good to run the manufacturer's diagnostics to confirm that the drive is viable, in proper working order. Just be sure to boot from the floppy, NOT that hard drive (I'm suggesting that you don't need NOD32). Dave |
#7
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use a CD and get bootmanager from http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/, to load
from the CD "rcm" wrote in message . ca... It is not unformatted capacity! 1.44 is the formatted capacity in megabytes (where m=1,000,000). All thes sizes are correct, it is the units definition that is used. http://www.pcguide.com/ref/fdd/formatSummary-c.html Unformatted Capacity ~2 MB Formatted Capacity (binary kilobytes) 1,440 Formatted Capacity (bytes) 1,474,560 File System Overhead (bytes) 16,896 Total Usable Capacity (bytes) 1,457,664 Total Usable Capacity (binary KB) 1,423.5 Total Usable Capacity (binary MB) 1.390 "kony" wrote in message ... On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 16:43:26 -0700, "Jeremy" wrote: I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy 1.44MB is the unformatted capacity. After formatting to FAT16 it'll be 1.38MB. Since you've already tried formatting the hard drive, I"ll assume you're not trying to preserve/recover any data from it? Boot to a windows startup floppy, FDISK /MBR the hard drive at the prompt. Then run FDISK again and see what the partitions look like, and if all space is accounted for. Given that you just received the drive, at this point it'd be good to run the manufacturer's diagnostics to confirm that the drive is viable, in proper working order. Just be sure to boot from the floppy, NOT that hard drive (I'm suggesting that you don't need NOD32). Dave |
#8
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Can't you just compress the floppy when you format it?
On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 16:43:26 -0700, "Jeremy" wrote: I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy |
#9
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Sorry, but the floppies are 1.44MB in capacity BEFORE mandatory Formatting.
After Formatting they have 1.38 MB of capacity. This is true of all standard IBM high density floppies. No way around it. -- DaveW "Jeremy" wrote in message ... I am really ashamed of myself for having to ask this question. I'm no computer expert but I should know better: A friend game me a 40GB hard drive that has a virus on it. I tried formatting it but the virus remained. I posted my problem in a forum and was told to use the program, NOD32 for DOS, an anti-virus program that will wipe viruses off of HDs that formatting can't reach. What I had to do was simple: Move the program (which is 1.41MB) onto a 3x3.5" disk, then boot from that disk and run the program. Simple, right? It should be. So I grab a disk, pop it in the A drive, tell my computer to copy over the program and a few seconds later I get an error message saying that there isn't enough room on the disk to copy the file. The file is 1.41MB and if memory serves, the diskette should be 1.44MB; there shouldn't be a problem. I go to the A drive's Properties and the disk is completely empty (not even a lable) and it says that the disk's free space is 1,457,664 bytes but next to that it says 1.38MB (File System: FAT, if that's important). What the...? I try formatting the disk and the capacity remains the same. I try a bunch of my HUNDREDS of other empty diskettes and they ALL show their capacity at 1.38MB. Aren't these disks supposed to be 1.44MB? I need 1.41MB to load that file. So what is happening? Should I go out and buy a new pack of diskettes that reads "1.44MB" on the side? I hope not. I already have TONS of empty diskettes already that I'm not even using. Can anyone help me? Thank you very much. Jeremy |
#10
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Low-Level-Format it.
-- I believe in having an open mind, but not so open that my brains fall out. |
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