Hard disk becomes floppy

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rob v. Albada
  • Start date Start date
R

Rob v. Albada

The last few days, the folowing happened:

After having used the computer for some considerable time, it could
not access drives D: and E: any more.

(D: and E: are partitions of an 80GB second disk drive.)

For instance, I gave a dir command in aDOS box (I am working with
Windows-98):

20:49:05 E\jav>dir

Het volume in station E heeft geen naam
[The volume in stationE: has no name]
Het volumenummer is 124B-1EDC
[ The volume number is ... ]
map van E:\jav

[map of ...]

<rubbish> 587.342.205 9-06-82 4:29 <rubbish>
<rubbish>3.541.250.890 12-06-82 6:00 <rubbish>

2 bestanden 4.128.593.095 bytes [ 2 files ]
0 dirs 31.373,97 MB vrij [...MB free]

The rubbish is unprintable, loads of nonsens like 3!Ö et cetera (many
characters between 128 and 255).

In fact, the jav dir contains tens of subdirectories and many files.

When I ran checkdisk (of drive E:), a blue screen appeared with the
following text:

Kan niet schrijven naar dskettestation E:
Gegevens of bestanden zijn mogelijk verloren gegaan.
Druk op een toets om verder te gaan.

In English:

Cannot write to the diskette in station E:
Data or files are possibly lost.
Press a key to continue.


Now E: is NOT a diskette station, but a hard disk.
For whatever reason, CHKDSK (Windows version) seems to 'think' that it
is a diskette station.

When I restart the computer, my virus scanner (F-Prot) finds nothing
wrong, I can access E: and all the files are there again. Until the
next crash.

What may be the cause and how can I cure it?

My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
and 2 hard drives.
The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
my work.)

Kind regards,

Rob van Albada in stormy Amsterdam.
 
My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
and 2 hard drives.
The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
my work.)
Click to expand...

What to do you expect when running the out dated and crash prone Win 9'x
O/S using FAT32? And there is nothing stopping you from rewritting your
home grown DOS programs so that they run on the NT platform.

Duane :)
 
From: "Rob v. Albada" <[email protected]>

|
| The last few days, the folowing happened:
|

< snip >

|
| In English:
|
| Cannot write to the diskette in station E:
| Data or files are possibly lost.
| Press a key to continue.
|
| Now E: is NOT a diskette station, but a hard disk.
| For whatever reason, CHKDSK (Windows version) seems to 'think' that it
| is a diskette station.
|
| When I restart the computer, my virus scanner (F-Prot) finds nothing
| wrong, I can access E: and all the files are there again. Until the
| next crash.
|
| What may be the cause and how can I cure it?
|
| My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
| and 2 hard drives.
| The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
| not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
| DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
| my work.)
|
| Kind regards,
|
| Rob van Albada in stormy Amsterdam.
|

Go to the hard disk manufacturer's web site and download their diagnostic software
respective to your hard disk. After the test, you will know if the hard disk is bad or
not..

Quantum/Maxtor - PowerMax
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Western Digital - Data LifeGuard Tools (DLGDiag)
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Hitachi/IBM - Drive Fitness Test (DFT)
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Seagate - SeaTools
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

Fujitsu - Diagnostic Tool
http://www.fcpa.com/download/hard-drives/

Samsung - Disk manager
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/shdiag.htm
 
What to do you expect when running the out dated and crash prone Win 9'x
O/S using FAT32? And there is nothing stopping you from rewritting your
home grown DOS programs so that they run on the NT platform.

Duane :)
Click to expand...

You do not know what you are writing about. Perhaps you have never
programmed.

Windows programming is indeed possible with my compiler, but it is a
very complex affair. I don't have the time to waste learning Windows
programming.
As all my programs are text related, DOS (simple and does everything I
need it to) is the best platform.


Kind regards,

Rob.
 
(e-mail address removed) (Rob v. Albada) wrote in @news.hccnet.nl:
You do not know what you are writing about. Perhaps you have never
programmed.

Windows programming is indeed possible with my compiler, but it is a
very complex affair. I don't have the time to waste learning Windows
programming.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about it's a complex affair. I have been programming
since 1980 back and forth with the IBM iron horses and Apple, Altos, IBC,
Novell, DEC, and Windows platforms.
As all my programs are text related, DOS (simple and does everything I
need it to) is the best platform.
Click to expand...

Okay Dokey!

And the best of luck to you with your problem.

Duane :)
 
(e-mail address removed) (Rob v. Albada) wrote in @news.hccnet.nl:


What are you talking about it's a complex affair. I have been programming
since 1980 back and forth with the IBM iron horses and Apple, Altos, IBC,
Novell, DEC, and Windows platforms.


Okay Dokey!

And the best of luck to you with your problem.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Anyway the present problem is not related to my using the DOS
box, I presume. Some other program perhaps changes something in the
BIOS, I'm afraid.

I started programming on a NewBrain (CP/M computer, around 1980).
My programming experience is limited, but nonetheless I have written
over 100,000 lines of code in over 300 MOD files on my present
computer. (Yes, Modula-2). I have indeed thought of converting the lot
to Windows programs (my compiler supports Win16, Win32, DOS16 and
DOS32), but I see no other advantage than that my prgrams will run
under XP, which I do not really need (yet... the latest main boards do
not support Win-98 any more.)
XP won't run my DOS32 programs.

Kind regards,

Rob.
 
(e-mail address removed) (Rob v. Albada) wrote in
Thanks. Anyway the present problem is not related to my using the DOS
box, I presume. Some other program perhaps changes something in the
BIOS, I'm afraid.

I started programming on a NewBrain (CP/M computer, around 1980).
My programming experience is limited, but nonetheless I have written
over 100,000 lines of code in over 300 MOD files on my present
computer. (Yes, Modula-2). I have indeed thought of converting the lot
to Windows programs (my compiler supports Win16, Win32, DOS16 and
DOS32), but I see no other advantage than that my prgrams will run
under XP, which I do not really need (yet... the latest main boards do
not support Win-98 any more.)
XP won't run my DOS32 programs.
Click to expand...

I suggest that you go .Net and you can use a VB, C# or C++ .Net Console
Application program and rewrite your DOS programs. All you need is the
..Net Framework for client/workstation and a .NET IDE which there is an
Open Source one you can use and I hear there are some other ones too. I
am fortunate that I am using .Net on the contract I am working, that I
have .Net 2003 on my laptop and desktop machines, and can get 2005 in the
future when needed.

I got to tell you .Net is a beautiful thing and it's a joy to program in
the .Net languages.

C# is and C++ .Net will soon become a Standardized language.

Duane :)
 
Rob said:
The last few days, the folowing happened:

After having used the computer for some considerable time, it could
not access drives D: and E: any more.

(D: and E: are partitions of an 80GB second disk drive.)

For instance, I gave a dir command in aDOS box (I am working with
Windows-98):

20:49:05 E\jav>dir

Het volume in station E heeft geen naam
[The volume in stationE: has no name]
Het volumenummer is 124B-1EDC
[ The volume number is ... ]
map van E:\jav

[map of ...]

<rubbish> 587.342.205 9-06-82 4:29 <rubbish>
<rubbish>3.541.250.890 12-06-82 6:00 <rubbish>

2 bestanden 4.128.593.095 bytes [ 2 files ]
0 dirs 31.373,97 MB vrij [...MB free]

The rubbish is unprintable, loads of nonsens like 3!Ö et cetera (many
characters between 128 and 255).

In fact, the jav dir contains tens of subdirectories and many files.

When I ran checkdisk (of drive E:), a blue screen appeared with the
following text:

Kan niet schrijven naar dskettestation E:
Gegevens of bestanden zijn mogelijk verloren gegaan.
Druk op een toets om verder te gaan.

In English:

Cannot write to the diskette in station E:
Data or files are possibly lost.
Press a key to continue.


Now E: is NOT a diskette station, but a hard disk.
For whatever reason, CHKDSK (Windows version) seems to 'think' that it
is a diskette station.

When I restart the computer, my virus scanner (F-Prot) finds nothing
wrong, I can access E: and all the files are there again. Until the
next crash.

What may be the cause and how can I cure it?

My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
and 2 hard drives.
The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
my work.)

Kind regards,

Rob van Albada in stormy Amsterdam.
Click to expand...
It would be better practice to use Win98's scandisk, as it fixes all
of the long name pointers (which look like ranDUMB junk).
I hav never seen that problem and cannot be of help, except to say
that the computer should be subjected to an extremely thorough AV scan
using a decent AV program (*not* Norton/Symantec), and 2 or three of the
most trusted spyware and adware detect/removal programs.
 
David said:
From: "Rob v. Albada" <[email protected]>

|
| The last few days, the folowing happened:
|

< snip >

|
| In English:
|
| Cannot write to the diskette in station E:
| Data or files are possibly lost.
| Press a key to continue.
|
| Now E: is NOT a diskette station, but a hard disk.
| For whatever reason, CHKDSK (Windows version) seems to 'think' that it
| is a diskette station.
|
| When I restart the computer, my virus scanner (F-Prot) finds nothing
| wrong, I can access E: and all the files are there again. Until the
| next crash.
|
| What may be the cause and how can I cure it?
|
| My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
| and 2 hard drives.
| The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
| not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
| DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
| my work.)
|
| Kind regards,
|
| Rob van Albada in stormy Amsterdam.
|

Go to the hard disk manufacturer's web site and download their diagnostic software
respective to your hard disk. After the test, you will know if the hard disk is bad or
not..

Quantum/Maxtor - PowerMax
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Western Digital - Data LifeGuard Tools (DLGDiag)
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Hitachi/IBM - Drive Fitness Test (DFT)
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Seagate - SeaTools
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

Fujitsu - Diagnostic Tool
http://www.fcpa.com/download/hard-drives/

Samsung - Disk manager
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/shdiag.htm
Click to expand...
Some of those programs will destroy the data on the hard drive, if
not properly used - and it is not difficult to do that...
Better to do AV, spyware and adware checking first!
Then if really concerned about HD integrity, use Spinrite which does
not compromise data - in fact, if a weak spot is found on the HD, the
data is recovered and moved to a good spot and the user winds up with a
more reliable HD (and all of the data).
 
Rob said:
Op Fri, 25 Nov 2005 20:48:28 GMT, Duane Arnold <[email protected]>
schreef:




You do not know what you are writing about. Perhaps you have never
programmed.

Windows programming is indeed possible with my compiler, but it is a
very complex affair. I don't have the time to waste learning Windows
programming.
As all my programs are text related, DOS (simple and does everything I
need it to) is the best platform.


Kind regards,

Rob.
Click to expand...
While i also dislike his response to you, one can write programs in
Fortran, compile for 32-bit DOS using the DOS4GW extender, and run the
program under DOS, Win9x, Win2K, WinNT and (i think) WinXP with zero
need for code change to accomidate the Win GUIs.
Or, if you have the MS BASIC compiler ver 7.x (called Professional
Development System), you could write in BASIC, compile and run under any
of those OSes (again unknown concerning WinXP).
In fact, the interpreter QBX works under all of those mentioned.
So, you have a lot of options without having to jump thru hoops to
add GUI hooks.
 
Rob said:
Op Fri, 25 Nov 2005 22:35:10 GMT, Duane Arnold <[email protected]>
schreef:




Thanks. Anyway the present problem is not related to my using the DOS
box, I presume. Some other program perhaps changes something in the
BIOS, I'm afraid.

I started programming on a NewBrain (CP/M computer, around 1980).
My programming experience is limited, but nonetheless I have written
over 100,000 lines of code in over 300 MOD files on my present
computer. (Yes, Modula-2). I have indeed thought of converting the lot
to Windows programs (my compiler supports Win16, Win32, DOS16 and
DOS32), but I see no other advantage than that my prgrams will run
under XP, which I do not really need (yet... the latest main boards do
not support Win-98 any more.)
XP won't run my DOS32 programs.

Kind regards,

Rob.
Click to expand...
???? Motherboards *not* supporting Win98???
I find that extremely hard to believe.
MBs do not "care" what OS is on the hard drive - from DOS 2.0 (the
first one that supported HDs) thru MSDOS 6.22, PCDOS 7.x, Win95, Win98,
Win98Se, Win2000, WinME (and Linux,Unix, etc) all work on any Intel
compatible PC MB (which of course includes AMD).
Shoot, if one wants to use a sawed-off shotgun to the foot, one could
even (ug) install WinXP and then be on the MS hook every time hardware
is changed.
 
Duane said:
(e-mail address removed) (Rob v. Albada) wrote in




I suggest that you go .Net and you can use a VB, C# or C++ .Net Console
Application program and rewrite your DOS programs. All you need is the
.Net Framework for client/workstation and a .NET IDE which there is an
Open Source one you can use and I hear there are some other ones too. I
am fortunate that I am using .Net on the contract I am working, that I
have .Net 2003 on my laptop and desktop machines, and can get 2005 in the
future when needed.

I got to tell you .Net is a beautiful thing and it's a joy to program in
the .Net languages.

C# is and C++ .Net will soon become a Standardized language.

Duane :)
Click to expand...
Why is it that always, when a new language comes to the fore, that
*it* will be "universal", will be "the standard", etc, etc ad nauseum?
And why is it that it is always different for different platforms,
and different between vendors?
Because (are you listening?) there ain't no standard used!
And then someone else (guess what) makes yet another new "universal"
"standard" - that is not.
Been going on since the 1960's...
BTW, what about all of those big holes in .NET that are hacker magnets???
 
Why is it that always, when a new language comes to the fore, that
*it* will be "universal", will be "the standard", etc, etc ad nauseum?
Click to expand...

I don't think you know what a standard means.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/ecma/
http://pluralsight.com/blogs/hsutter/archive/2005/09/22/14970.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/homepageheadlines/ecma/default.aspx
And why is it that it is always different for different platforms,
and different between vendors?
Because (are you listening?) there ain't no standard used!
And then someone else (guess what) makes yet another new
"universal"
"standard" - that is not.
Click to expand...

You can send emails to the vendors about your take on it.

HTTP://www.mono-project.com/Mono:About
http://www.dotnetpowered.com/languages.aspx
Been going on since the 1960's...
BTW, what about all of those big holes in .NET that are hacker
magnets???
Click to expand...

Like all the rest of things written by fallible Human Beings, when Human
Beings are not infallible and programs are written by Beings from Outer
Space that may be perfect, then I'll expect better. Other than that, it
is not going to ever happen with whatever a Human Being does. So, you can
get off of that horse.

I am going to have to say here that you don't know what you're talking
about when it comes to .Net.

And you didn't sit 8 hours a day for 4 weeks being trained on the ins and
outs about .NET like I had to sit there.

MS doesn't own or control .NET. It only owns VB.Net and controls that.
The rest of .Net is controlled and owned by the ECMA and ISO.

The bottom line is that .NET is putting $$$$$ in my pockets and companies
are going to it and that's all that counts -- nothing else. On the MS
platform, they got no choice as MS starts dropping support for Visual
Studio 6 languages just like they did with 5, 4 and on down the line.

Are you looking and are you listening for the .Net train as it's coming?

Duane :)
 
Duane Arnold - 26.11.2005 01:52 :

for example:

should be:

should be:

Is it your NewsClient producing such linefeeds/wrong ">"marker? Please
proof the configuration NewsClient. THX! Otherwise especially longer
threads become more unreadble.
 
Is it your NewsClient producing such linefeeds/wrong ">"marker? Please
proof the configuration NewsClient. THX! Otherwise especially longer
threads become more unreadble.
Click to expand...

Send a email to the author of Xnews he wrote the thing not me. Whatever
Xnews is doing it's doing it. But I'll see if I can accommodate you. He
should have incorporated a spell checker in the thing as far as I am
concerned.

Duane :).
 
From: "Rob v. Albada" <[email protected]>

|
| The last few days, the folowing happened:
|

< snip >

|
| In English:
|
| Cannot write to the diskette in station E:
| Data or files are possibly lost.
| Press a key to continue.
|
| Now E: is NOT a diskette station, but a hard disk.
| For whatever reason, CHKDSK (Windows version) seems to 'think' that it
| is a diskette station.
|
| When I restart the computer, my virus scanner (F-Prot) finds nothing
| wrong, I can access E: and all the files are there again. Until the
| next crash.
|
| What may be the cause and how can I cure it?
|
| My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
| and 2 hard drives.
| The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
| not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
| DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
| my work.)
|
| Kind regards,
|
| Rob van Albada in stormy Amsterdam.
|

Go to the hard disk manufacturer's web site and download their diagnostic software
respective to your hard disk. After the test, you will know if the hard disk is bad or
not..

Quantum/Maxtor - PowerMax
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Western Digital - Data LifeGuard Tools (DLGDiag)
http://support.wdc.com/download/

Hitachi/IBM - Drive Fitness Test (DFT)
http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

Seagate - SeaTools
http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/

Fujitsu - Diagnostic Tool
http://www.fcpa.com/download/hard-drives/

Samsung - Disk manager
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/shdiag.htm
Click to expand...

Thanks for those. I'm going to bookmark them and possibly pass them on to
the other members of a computer club I belong to.

Another possibility comes to mind. Could the problem also be memory
related? If a RAM chip or module was intermittant, a cache of the disk
contents could be read back from the RAM as garbage.

A Google search for: free software "memory test"
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&i...ftware+"memory+test"&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

finds these on the first page of results:

"Free memory test - ZDNet UK Insight"
http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/servers/0,39020445,2132568,00.htm
"Memtest86 - Memory Diagnostic Page"
http://www.memtest86.com/
"Memtest86+ - Advanced Memory Diagnostic Tool"
http://www.memtest.org/
"DocMemory - Info"
http://www.simmtester.com/PAGE/products/doc/docinfo.asp
"PCWorld.com - DocMemory RAM Diagnostic Software v1.45a"
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,20541,00.asp
 
Op Sat, 26 Nov 2005 06:00:02 GMT, Robert Baer
<[email protected]> schreef:

That's what te vendor told me. (He only sells Intel motherboards.)

May some day switch to Linux anuway. My programs are not commercial,
and Linux may be easier to learn than Windows.
For the time being I'm still working with (extended) DOS and I quite
like it.

BTW, I downloaded PowerMax (the drive concerned is a Maxtor drive) and
guess what happened?

Powermax wants to create a diskette first, and asks for a floppy disk
in drive A:

Whatever disk I use, it keeps saying: Invalid sized diskette in drive.

While I am certain the diskettes which I tried are 1.44 MB ones as
required by PowerMax.

Therefore I am unable to run Powermax.

CheckIt Diagnostics tests A: C: D: and E: all OK.

Strange.

Kind regards,

Rob van Albada, Amsterdam.
 
Op Sat, 26 Nov 2005 05:40:45 GMT, Robert Baer
Rob said:
The last few days, the folowing happened:

After having used the computer for some considerable time, it could
not access drives D: and E: any more.

(D: and E: are partitions of an 80GB second disk drive.)

For instance, I gave a dir command in aDOS box (I am working with
Windows-98):

20:49:05 E\jav>dir

Het volume in station E heeft geen naam
[The volume in stationE: has no name]
Het volumenummer is 124B-1EDC
[ The volume number is ... ]
map van E:\jav

[map of ...]

<rubbish> 587.342.205 9-06-82 4:29 <rubbish>
<rubbish>3.541.250.890 12-06-82 6:00 <rubbish>

2 bestanden 4.128.593.095 bytes [ 2 files ]
0 dirs 31.373,97 MB vrij [...MB free]

The rubbish is unprintable, loads of nonsens like 3!Ö et cetera (many
characters between 128 and 255).

In fact, the jav dir contains tens of subdirectories and many files.

When I ran checkdisk (of drive E:), a blue screen appeared with the
following text:

Kan niet schrijven naar dskettestation E:
Gegevens of bestanden zijn mogelijk verloren gegaan.
Druk op een toets om verder te gaan.

In English:

Cannot write to the diskette in station E:
Data or files are possibly lost.
Press a key to continue.


Now E: is NOT a diskette station, but a hard disk.
For whatever reason, CHKDSK (Windows version) seems to 'think' that it
is a diskette station.

When I restart the computer, my virus scanner (F-Prot) finds nothing
wrong, I can access E: and all the files are there again. Until the
next crash.

What may be the cause and how can I cure it?

My computer has a rather newish Intel mainboard with a 3 GB Pentium 4
and 2 hard drives.
The OS is Windows-98SE which has been running for years now. (I will
not downgrade to Windows XP, because it does not support my home grown
DOS programs under any circumstances. These programs are essential for
my work.)

Kind regards,

Rob van Albada in stormy Amsterdam.
Click to expand...
It would be better practice to use Win98's scandisk, as it fixes all
of the long name pointers (which look like ranDUMB junk).
I hav never seen that problem and cannot be of help, except to say
that the computer should be subjected to an extremely thorough AV scan
using a decent AV program (*not* Norton/Symantec), and 2 or three of the
most trusted spyware and adware detect/removal programs.
Click to expand...

I have used F-Prot (latest opdate) and a2, neither of them foud
viruses or malware.

I also used Spybot and SpywareBlaster with negative outcome.

Therefore I would be rather surprised if this is a virus/spyware
related problem.

Kind regards,

Rob van Albada, Amsterdam.
 
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