Installing an Old Harddrive?

"N9WOS" wrote in message
...
Two....
Go down to best buy, circuit city, or staples and buy a 60GB drive for 60
dollars.
(I think that is what they are going for now..)
Install it as a second hard drive, as a slave to the first.
Use the dos maintenance programs on the DOS disk to create and format
A 2GB partition on the very start of the new drive.
Use Xcopy to copy the data over to the new non compressed drive.
Pull the Maxtor dos disk out, and put your XP drive in as primary,
and you are off to the races.

Out of curiousity, why couldn't I use XP to format this new 3rd hard drive
with 2 partitions: 1st: 2 GB FAT 16, 2nd: rest of the HD NTFS. Why must I
partition the new HD in DOS using DOS maintenance programs.

On Thu, 6 Jan 2005 19:48:22 -0500, "Zip" wrote:


"N9WOS" wrote in message
...
Two....
Go down to best buy, circuit city, or staples and buy a 60GB drive for 60
dollars.
(I think that is what they are going for now..)
Install it as a second hard drive, as a slave to the first.
Use the dos maintenance programs on the DOS disk to create and format
A 2GB partition on the very start of the new drive.
Use Xcopy to copy the data over to the new non compressed drive.
Pull the Maxtor dos disk out, and put your XP drive in as primary,
and you are off to the races.

Out of curiousity, why couldn't I use XP to format this new 3rd hard drive
with 2 partitions: 1st: 2 GB FAT 16, 2nd: rest of the HD NTFS. Why must I
partition the new HD in DOS using DOS maintenance programs.


Here's one final idea...

http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/

Good luck.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

Thanks, I was not aware of this, and it may have been something I would
try.
To summarize (let me just get this straight), DOS 6.22 will recognize any
partition on any hard drive if the following three conditions are met:

1) The partition is FAT 16
2) The partition is no greater than 2 GB
3) The partition falls within the first 8 GB of the hard disk

It should*
*(N9WOS disclaims any responsibility for, and the accuracy of, the
statement.)


smacks self Yeah, I forgot about that. But it was fun playing around
with
a system that had a floppy drive, DVD drive, CD burner, and no hard
drives.
Well, not really.

I know the feeling....


I think this is the alternative I'd like to try first. Question, though.
What is the file system on the USB drive? FAT 16, FAT 32, NTFS? Do I need
to
format the USB drive before hand?

Usually USB thumb drives are formatted FAT 16
But sometimes they are not.
If in doubt, you can format it with fat 16 by using windows.

Or you can use DOS 6.22 Fdisk to repartition it in dos,
and then use the DOS format command to format it with FAT 16
Yes, Fdisk works with a USB thumb drive too.
Make sure to have the Maxtor disk disconnected when you do it,
(Run Fdisk and format from a floppy.)
So you don't accidentally delete the partition on the Maxtor hard drive.
Then reconnect the Maxtor drive to move the data over.

WARNING do not use DOS 6.22 Fdisk while
a drive with an NTFS partition is connected to the computer!!!!!!

I don't know about other people, some may get away with it,
and it may be particular to the computers I have around here... But...
I have totally destroyed multiple NTFS partitions before I knew what was
going on.

You don't even have to try to do any modifications to the drive with Fdisk,
When you load the program, and it says....
"Fdisk encountered an error while reading drive C"
(or something to that effect)
The NTFS partition on that drive is already toast!

Out of curiousity, why couldn't I use XP to format this new 3rd hard drive
with 2 partitions: 1st: 2 GB FAT 16, 2nd: rest of the HD NTFS.

You could.

Why must I
partition the new HD in DOS using DOS maintenance programs.

I didn't say you had to do that, but I was assuming you would already have
The XP drive disconnected, which would mean that you were limited to
DOS applications.

And I have had one time, that I couldn't get another OS to read
A fat partition created by win XP.

So I follow this general rule
If you use DOS to make the partition, then you know that DOS can read it!

Update:

First, the good news: I found a 13 GB hard drive lying around here. I
created a 300 MB partition at the beginning of it, and formatted the
partition FAT using WinXP Disk Management. Booted to DOS 6.22 via a floppy
boot disk, and the new 300 MB FAT partition was recognized in DOS.

Now, the bad news: I set the Maxtor drive (the compressed volume) to master
dual, and the new HD with the 300 MB FAT partition to slave dual, and the
Maxtor drive would not boot "Boot disk failure. Please insert a system
disk". This doesn't convince me that the Maxtor is hosed. After all, the
capacity, usage and presence of command.com were recognized when it was a
slave to the XP NTFS drive.

So I guess my final option is to somehow load Drive Space via a DOS boot
floppy. However, after much research, I have no idea how to do this, or even
what must be present on the boot floppy. Apparently a file called
drvspace.bin must be present, which details the exact specifications of the
compressed volume. If this is wrong, however, the show's off. To make
matters worse, if the wrong version of DOS is loaded via bootdisk, the
compressed volume won't be recognized. And I'm not even sure now if DOS 6.21
vs. 6.22, or Double Space vs. Drive Space was running on the Maxtor. It
seems like a whole lot of really lucky guesswork needs to take place in
order for this to eventually work.

Anyway, if anyone has any more bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.
And thanks again for all the help!

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 00:35:23 -0500, "Zip" wrote:

Update:

First, the good news: I found a 13 GB hard drive lying around here. I
created a 300 MB partition at the beginning of it, and formatted the
partition FAT using WinXP Disk Management. Booted to DOS 6.22 via a floppy
boot disk, and the new 300 MB FAT partition was recognized in DOS.

Now, the bad news: I set the Maxtor drive (the compressed volume) to master
dual, and the new HD with the 300 MB FAT partition to slave dual, and the
Maxtor drive would not boot "Boot disk failure. Please insert a system
disk". This doesn't convince me that the Maxtor is hosed. After all, the
capacity, usage and presence of command.com were recognized when it was a
slave to the XP NTFS drive.

Don't do any of this fancy stuff. IOW...I don't recall seeing
anywhere where you ever simply booted into that Maxtor drive.

DO THAT!...so that you know what you MIGHT have. If its a compressed
drive, booting into it should answer some of your questions.

Simply jumper it as single drive...no slave attached. Then boot it by
itself. If its a compressed drive, it'll have all the necessary
drivers...and you'll be able to see what's on the drive.

So I guess my final option is to somehow load Drive Space via a DOS boot
floppy.

At this point, you don't even KNOW that its a compressed drive.
Simply boot to it...and make sure its the only drive running on the
ENTIRE SYSTEM...including any optical drives, etc. IOW...disable ALL
drives on ALL controllers...escept for that drive.

Anyway, if anyone has any more bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.
And thanks again for all the help!

Partition Manager...or Partition Magic...or some other software that
can tell you something about the partition.

And...what makes you think there's any files on the drive? Are you
simply guessing?

Good luck...let us know.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

"Trent©" wrote in message
news
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 00:35:23 -0500, "Zip" wrote:


Don't do any of this fancy stuff. IOW...I don't recall seeing
anywhere where you ever simply booted into that Maxtor drive.

DO THAT!...so that you know what you MIGHT have. If its a compressed
drive, booting into it should answer some of your questions.

Simply jumper it as single drive...no slave attached. Then boot it by
itself. If its a compressed drive, it'll have all the necessary
drivers...and you'll be able to see what's on the drive.

I set the Maxtor to master single, and pulled the IDE cables from the 300 MB
FAT partition HD, the floppy drive, the DVD drive, and the CD-RW drive.
Turned on the computer: "Boot disk failure. Please insert a disk and press
enter". With this setup, the BIOS recognizes the Maxtor as the primary hard
drive as basically the only device available to the system.

So I guess my final option is to somehow load Drive Space via a DOS boot
floppy.

At this point, you don't even KNOW that its a compressed drive.

I'm about 98% sure. The symptoms of a compressed volume are there, and the
terms 'dblspace' and 'drvspace', even though I haven't even thought about
them in years, ring an awfully big bell. I was constantly in need of space.

Simply boot to it...and make sure its the only drive running on the
ENTIRE SYSTEM...including any optical drives, etc. IOW...disable ALL
drives on ALL controllers...escept for that drive.

Anyway, if anyone has any more bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.
And thanks again for all the help!

Partition Manager...or Partition Magic...or some other software that
can tell you something about the partition.

I KNOW the Maxtor only contained 1 partition. I'm assuming those programs
would tell me its a 120 MB drive with a single FAT partition. Not sure what
else they could tell me that I don't already know. Could they tell me
something about the 'alleged' compression?

And...what makes you think there's any files on the drive? Are you
simply guessing?

Well, this is only circumstancial evidence of course, but:

1) The disk was for sure running DOS 6.x and windows 3.x. Absolutely NO
chance of Win 95.
2) I remember many files and programs being on the disk 10 years ago.
3) XP recognizes the Maxtor, its capacity, its current usage (in MB), and
can find the single file 'command.com' on it. It seems strange to me that XP
can recognize the filesystem and a file on the Maxtor, and yet a DOS 6.22
bootdisk cannot.

Just throwing out ideas, but any chance it could be the IDE cable (i.e., its
a "cable select" compatible IDE cable, and I'm not sure the maxtor supports
cable select). If I remember correctly, cable select IDE cables have an
extra voltage line.

Thanks again for your help.

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 13:15:52 -0500, "Zip" wrote:

Don't do any of this fancy stuff. IOW...I don't recall seeing
anywhere where you ever simply booted into that Maxtor drive.

DO THAT!...so that you know what you MIGHT have. If its a compressed
drive, booting into it should answer some of your questions.

Simply jumper it as single drive...no slave attached. Then boot it by
itself. If its a compressed drive, it'll have all the necessary
drivers...and you'll be able to see what's on the drive.

I set the Maxtor to master single, and pulled the IDE cables from the 300 MB
FAT partition HD, the floppy drive, the DVD drive, and the CD-RW drive.
Turned on the computer: "Boot disk failure. Please insert a disk and press
enter". With this setup, the BIOS recognizes the Maxtor as the primary hard
drive as basically the only device available to the system.

Okay...so one thing we know for SURE now...

You do not have a viable, bootable drive...even if it IS a compressed
drive.

Anyway, if anyone has any more bright ideas, I'd love to hear them.
And thanks again for all the help!

Partition Manager...or Partition Magic...or some other software that
can tell you something about the partition.

I KNOW the Maxtor only contained 1 partition. I'm assuming those programs
would tell me its a 120 MB drive with a single FAT partition. Not sure what
else they could tell me that I don't already know. Could they tell me
something about the 'alleged' compression?

Get BootItNG...and run it. Its free...and it should be able to see
all the partitions on that drive. Create a bootable, BootItNG
floppy...then boot into it with only that Maxtor drive attached. See
what it tells you.

And...what makes you think there's any files on the drive? Are you
simply guessing?

Well, this is only circumstancial evidence of course, but:

1) The disk was for sure running DOS 6.x and windows 3.x. Absolutely NO
chance of Win 95.
2) I remember many files and programs being on the disk 10 years ago.
3) XP recognizes the Maxtor, its capacity, its current usage (in MB), and
can find the single file 'command.com' on it. It seems strange to me that XP
can recognize the filesystem and a file on the Maxtor, and yet a DOS 6.22
bootdisk cannot.

Yer not talking about DOS 6.22, of course. Yer takin' about a certain
program...FDISK ?, I don't remember which program you were
runnin'...that was a DOS 6.22 version.

If I remember correctly...its been a long time ago since I screwed
around with a compression program...the program created a separate
partition (or was it a file?) and swapped drive letters. At any rate,
I'm not sure that FDISK can see hidden partitions. I think BootItNG
can.

If it were booting properly, you would see 2 drives...your C
drive...and another drive letter. I think they used F by default.

And I THINK I remember that, no matter what, you were always able to
see autoexec.bat, config.sys, and dblspace.bin. You don't seem to
have those files on that drive.

Just throwing out ideas, but any chance it could be the IDE cable (i.e., its
a "cable select" compatible IDE cable, and I'm not sure the maxtor supports
cable select). If I remember correctly, cable select IDE cables have an
extra voltage line.

Shouldn't be a problem. But if you have any doubts, take your other
boot drive and set it to master, no slave...and boot into it. It
should boot.

Recap...

You now know for sure that the drive will not boot. So, if it IS a
compressed drive, other files will need to be added in order for it to
boot.

Next...find out the rest of the information about the drive...i.e.,
how many partitions (including any that may be hidden) that are on the
drive.

Good luck...let us know.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 13:15:52 -0500, "Zip" wrote:

One more thing...

You should tackle your problem in at LEAST 2 steps...

1. Gain access to the drive and its files.

2. Transfer/save/move the files.

Get #1 accomplished first. If you can't access the files, #2 won't be
a problem.

And #2 should be a simple matter.


Have a nice one...

Trent©

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!

"Trent©" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 13:15:52 -0500, "Zip" wrote:

I again appreciate yours and others continued help on recovering this data.
It's pretty important to me.

Get BootItNG...and run it. Its free...and it should be able to see
all the partitions on that drive. Create a bootable, BootItNG
floppy...then boot into it with only that Maxtor drive attached. See
what it tells you.

When bringing up the system with only the Maxtor HD and a bootitNG floppy, a
single partition is found. So this indicates to me that either there is a
hidden partition and bootit can't detect it, or there is no hidden
partition. I'm kinda leaning toward the latter (see below). Also, the bootit
creation of the EMBR fails on HD0, and reading the manual, this is
indicative of write-protected media. Could this drive somehow be write
protected? I sure didn't do it, but that might explain why it won't boot. Or
maybe whatever physical component responsible for disk writes is now
inoperative? I've been tentative to test write to the Maxtor, for fear of
ruining the data somehow.

This is a pretty interesting development, however:
I don't know why I didn't do this before, but performing a dir /ah on the
maxtor drive as a slave in XP yields:

F:\dir /ah
Volume in drive F has no label.
Volume Serial Number is 1D91-5DCC

Directory of F:\

05/31/1994 06:22 AM 40,774 IO.SYS
05/31/1994 06:22 AM 38,138 MSDOS.SYS
09/20/1995 04:56 AM 8,472,576 386SPART.PAR
09/30/1993 06:20 AM 64,246 DBLSPACE.BIN
05/31/1994 06:22 AM 66,294 DRVSPACE.BIN
05/31/1994 06:22 AM 512 DRVSPACE.MR1
07/05/1996 12:50 AM 112,671,232 DRVSPACE.000
12/17/1994 04:55 PM 109 DRVSPACE.INI
01/05/2005 11:37 PM DIR System Volume Information
8 File(s) 121,353,881 bytes
1 Dir(s) 8,509,440 bytes free

Does this help us at all? It seems unlikely that there would be a hidden
partition on this drive, as all data (size-wise) is now accounted for. Or is
this faulty logic?

And...what makes you think there's any files on the drive? Are you
simply guessing?

Well, this is only circumstancial evidence of course, but:

I guess I have empirical evidence now.

Yer not talking about DOS 6.22, of course. Yer takin' about a certain
program...FDISK ?, I don't remember which program you were
runnin'...that was a DOS 6.22 version.

I was using a floppy bootdisk from bootdisk.com that was created with an
executable named boot622-1.exe. Maybe I don't have a clear understanding of
how bootdisks work, but I thought using this bootdisk would have brought the
system up with DOS 6.22.

Again, thanks...