Hard drive lost DOS partitions

[nardstrom]

While installing a second hard drive, we booted the oomputer using a disk that we had labeled "Windows Boot Disk"(the floppy had command.com and other dos programs). The computer did not fully boot, and now the original hard drive is unrecognizable (by DOS). Using FDISK, this drive now shows 4 non-Dos partitions. How can I recover my files from the old drive? The system was running 6.0 or so DOS and Windows 95 and the drive was built in 1997 (JTS Corp)

[Dr_Watson]

did you try fdisk /mbr?

[Jim9999]

/mbr isn't likely to fix this one...

You said it didn't fully boot. What happened?

Do you still have the 2nd drive in there? If so, take it out for the time being.

Was the 1st drive partitioned with anything other than Fdisk, such as Partition Magic, or a drive overlay? If it was set up with an overlay, you'll need the overlay software running before booting from a floppy (they sometimes tell you to hit CTRL to boot off a floppy... etc)

What message do you get when you try to boot to this drive?

[nardstrom]

The system does not fully boot from the hard drive. Basically the system "hangs" when you might normally see "starting DOS..." Ctrl/Alt/Delete doesn't work, and the only way out is to press the reset button. There's no error message at all. Not "non-system disk" nothing. I don't know how the hard drive was originally partitioned, but I'm assuming that it was done with some kind of overlay. How does an overlay work? I assume it is on the disk, but when does it run and is there a way I can get it running from a floppy and then get to the hard drive? I tried the JTS web-site, but it looks like their out of the hard drive business, so I couldn't find any software to download. Would something like partition magic work?