are all boot disks created equally?

[VBAHole22]

I tried to install an Onstream tape drive to my Win2kpro machine and it crapped the whole thing out. Now when I start up it goes through all of the BIOS stuff and then when it goes to start windoze it just flashes a cursor and then says 'a disk read error occured' and that's the end.

I never made a boot disk so I guess I'm out of luck there. My question is can I use another machine to create a boot disk for the busted machine? Are boot disks (or recovery disks) unique for each system? If I had the win2k cd could I boot up that way?

[AllGamer]

Depends on what kind of boot disk.

now as for your problem, you can boot from your original Win2k CD

then select repair
then select console
then type fixboot
that should take care of your problem

[Nukes]

Could physically installing the drive have messed up your hard disk's connection.
ie, messing something up with a SCSI chain or setting wrong settings on IDE jumpers?
Or did the problem start only after you loaded the software?

[The_Shafer]

To answer your question, for the most part you can create a bootdisk from another computer that will work on your computer. Just make sure they have the same operating system. If you have a Win2k OS, make sure the bootdisk your using is Win2k. Win98 uses Win98, etc. etc. etc. Good luck! :)

The_Shafer@hotmail.com

The_Shafer :D

[richard_cocks]

You don't really even need to make sure the OS is right in most cases, I know there is no diff between any 9x/me boot disks, and I suspect others (ms ones) are the same too, they just load basic command into a ramdrive, alowing you to load the rest of the OS.

[The_Shafer]

But sometimes there are 'special' drivers that a certain OS can use, than another OS doesn't offer.

The_Shafer@hotmail.com

The_Shafer :D

[VBAHole22]

The tape drive software was up and running when I attempted a flash update to the firmware. This appeared to go off cleanly but when I went to reboot a windows message of 'drive error' flashed and that was it.
I have since rebooted from a floppy (it was a win95 boot disk) and been able to recognize my other hard drive (d) but c is nowhere to be found and once the BIOS posts it cops out, so no OS.
I haven't tried the cd boot yet (gotta find the cd). I am considering pulling the drive and putting it in another machine to recover the data.

Both of these hard drives are on a Promise IDE card with some sort of RAID Stripe Array ( i have no clue what that is).

Am I looking at a no win situation where the drive is shot (and my data) but the machine is good, or the data is intact and the puter is fubar?

[BipolarBill]

Have a floppy with the RAID drivers handy for this:

1. Boot from the Win2K CD

2. Press F6 when you see the setup screen

3. Load the RAID drivers when prompted for storage drivers

4. Continue and choose Repair > Fast Repair

The drive may indeed be dying. I would plan for a disaster.

[VBAHole22]

I am having trouble loading the RAID drivers because the setup program only wants to locate a file named txtsetup.oem and nothing else. My driver is an .exe
I tried to just rename it txtsetup.oem but it span around in the drive and the win2k setup program said 'Line 1 of the INI file was invalid.setup cannot continue. press any key to exit'
When I press any key it goes back to prompt and says 'NTLDR is missing'

[jmichna]

Originally posted by VBAHole22
I am having trouble loading the RAID drivers because the setup program only wants to locate a file named txtsetup.oem and nothing else. My driver is an .exe
I tried to just rename it txtsetup.oem but it span around in the drive and the win2k setup program said 'Line 1 of the INI file was invalid.setup cannot continue. press any key to exit'
When I press any key it goes back to prompt and says 'NTLDR is missing' Is the driver in a "zipped executable" format that needs to be unzipped, then copied to the floppy?
Just wondering...
jmichna

[BipolarBill]

That's right - double-click the driver file in Windows and extract the driver files inside it to the floppy. Use WinZip (http://www.winzip.com/).

[VBAHole22]

Okay that was just dumb on my part. The exe self extracted and the win boot disks accepted the driver.
However when I got to boot disk 4 it said I had two options. It says my hard drive is either erased or running a different OS and that I either back out and quit or go forward and my c drive could be wiped.
I would like to get stuff off of my c drive.
If I go ahead with the option will it definitely be wiped?
Or should I first try to pop this drive in another machine and try to dump the data off it?

Thanks for the help folks, by the way.

[BipolarBill]

Are you sure that it said the drive would be erased? Usually, it warns that the other OS will be removed. If that's the case, go ahead - your data will still be there.

Why don't you boot from the CD? It's hella quicker.

[VBAHole22]

At first it took me some time to track down the cd. Now I have a win 2k SP1 cd even though I am (was) running SP2. I used the cd in another machine to create the 4boot disk series. The reason i am not booting from the cd is because I can't figure out how to get it to do that. Is there a setting in the BIOS to tell it to boot from the cd drive? I see something about a Pheonix BIOS on the screen right at startup but when I hit all of the F keys to get into it all I get is the FastTrak utility settings. It appears that the BIOS is handing off to the FastTrak-Promise BIOS before I can even get into it. From the Fastrak screen I can't do much but mess with arrays and I don't know what those are.
If I could get the cd boot that would help alot as the disk boot takes forever!

Again many thanks for the help

[BipolarBill]

I'm not intimately familiar with your BIOS, but there is usually either a Boot Sequence switch or the option to press F9 (or another key) to summon the BIOS boot menu during POST. Look for a screen prompt.

[VBAHole22]

Okay I finally managed to get into the BIOS. I setup the CD as the boot drive so now it does go faster. I am still apprehensive about clicking yes on the question of whether to go ahead with the repair. First it says your OS may be erased, then under that it says that you may lose all data on your hard drive. I'm think i'm going to try the option of dropping this drive in another machine (in place of a cd drive) and see if I can read the drive that way.

Do you believe that the firmware from a tape drive could kill a hard drive?
Coincidentally, no rep from the tape drive company (Onstream) has ever returned my service call after the last tech 'bumped' it up to a 'Level 2' tech. Bull.

[BipolarBill]

What you can try is booting from the CD and selecting Repair with the Recovery Console. Then type CHDSK C: /F /R . Let Setup diagnose and repair the disk. Now reboot again and run the normal setup.

[VBAHole22]

I tried your suggestion and it didn't work for me. I got to the Recocery Console and tried to run chkdsk but it just span and span and never got past 0% completed. It also would not let me dir the c drive.

Is it possible that I can't dir the drive because windoze is fubar?
What I mean is could I perhaps see my data if this drive were in a machine that had a working OS?

You have been most helpful Bill and I do appreciate it. I'm at the end of the road for this drive. I think I need to sh-t or get off the pot

[BipolarBill]

If the drive used EZ-BIOS, that might explain it. A drive overlay installed on another system might not be readable on Win2K. Try this:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

If it fails, use this:

http://service.boulder.ibm.com/storage/hddtech/zap.exe

:(

[Strawbs]

I must admit to not reading this thread in it's entirity, so please forgive any duplicate suggestion. I have one of these onstream tape drives, one of the reasons for your booting problems could be if it's installed with the primary drive, you should try to install it on a separate ide channel to your primary drive, and make sure the tape is removed from the drive when shutting down or booting as this will have an adverse affect on boot\shutdown times\behaviour.

Installation should be to the secondary IDE channel as the drive isn't quick enough to keep up with a CD Rom let alone a HDD, and it will slow the hard disk down to it's own speed if connected on the same cable.

Further... the software allows for showing the drive in explorer, this option should be disabled immediately or every time you open explorer, the back-up folder is scanned for changes (even with no tape present) and it takes an age to complete, the same thing happens if you do a full system virus scan or search.

Good Luck. :t

[VBAHole22]

Currently the tape drive is out of the picture. Ipulled it after all of this mess started. Initially it was in the secondary IDE slot on the motherboard along with a cd-rom in the primary and 2 hard drives on the IDE RAID card. Tech support at OnSTream was helpful in getting the tape drive installed (its a DI-30). I had it up and running and the tech guy was about to hang up when I asked about the firmware upgrade that he mentioned earlier. He said yeah lets do that now. I double clicked on the downloaded file and it ran the little flash firmware update and said reboot. That was the last I saw of my c drive and windoze.

Interestingly enough when I run the win boot fromt he cd and attmept to run the recovery it identifies the drive and even briefly gives me the stats on it at the bottom of the screen (at least the capacity) and then gives me a c prompt that i can't really do much at. It won't dir and chkdsk never gets past 0%

[Strawbs]

My Tape drive is the same model. by default these drives are seen by windows as another HDD

It's entirely possible that the firmware update has taken a wrong turn (or pointed the wrong route) and flashed your C:\ instead.

if that is the case you will need an OEM disk manager to reset your Master Boot Record and lots of luck.

What Model is the HDD that is causing the grief?

[VBAHole22]

It says IBM Deskstar 41.0GB

[BipolarBill]

GAH! It's not a 60 or 75GXP, is it? What are the first 4 digits in the model number? DTLA, for instance, is very bad. :(

[Strawbs]

You should download the IBM drive fitness test Here (http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm), it contains maintainance programs that may help you restore your drive, warning: the website states that some of the software may wipe your data, be sure to read the blurb first and take the appropriate steps to safeguard your valuable data.

DISCLAIMER: Strawbs will not be held responsible if the users drive responds to the use of this program by smoking heavily and refusing to quit, despite being warned that SMOKING IS BAD FOR YOUR DRIVES HEALTH. :eek:

[VBAHole22]

Model#: IC35L.....

[BipolarBill]

Originally posted by VBAHole22
Model#: IC35L..... Whew! What a relief. Use the IBM diagnostics that Strawbs recommended.

[skamania24]

You can actually begin a win2k install with a win98 boot disk ( I say 98 cuz 95 didn't have cdrom support on boot disk)

After running the boot disk, select your d:\ (cd-rom drive)
instead of typing in 'setup', type in 'winnt' and setup will begin from cd rom. You might have to go to the i386 directory then type it, I can't remember.