Rediculously Simple Question

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeremy
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J

Jeremy

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
 
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, 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?
 
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.
 
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
Click to expand...

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
 
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
 
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.
 
Unless its MFM or similar you can't
Claus
: Low-Level-Format it.
:
: --
: I believe in having an open mind,
: but not so open that my brains fall out.
:
:
:
 
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.
Click to expand...

Some of it is all the way it is counted. They used to be advertised as 2 MB
disk. This was a raw unformatted form. Also when Windows 95 came out it
was on some special formatted disks of about 1.6 or 1.8 MB or so (don't
remember the exact number). It took a special program to format the disks
to that ammount and to copy the disks. It was not on the standard MS format
utility. Some of the floppy drives could be forced to take a couple of
extra tracks for more data also.
 
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