Save me from this ST31720A

  • Thread starter Thread starter David White
  • Start date Start date
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David White

I have a Seagate ST31720A. I've formatted it for FAT16 and put bootable DOS
on it, but when I try to boot it it says "Dynamic Drive Overlay v 7.11" and
wants me to insert a floppy disk. I've tried Seagate DiscWizard to set up
the disk, but it wants to install a whole operating system (a Windows, which
I don't want). I don't need all this crap. I just want it to be an ordinary
hard disk that will boot the way _I_ want it to boot, not the way it wants
to, even if it won't work to its full capability. How can I do that?

David
 
Apparently at one point an overlay program was installed on the drive. The
overlay program is often used to allow an older bios to see a larger hard
drive than the bios can handle so its full capacity can be utilized on the
computer. Use the Seagate disk utility disk to write "0"s to it. The process
is sometimes confused as low level formatting, which you can't do and would
have to initially be done at the plant. However, what the zeroing does
essentially is to wipe the drive clean and get rid of the overlay so that
you are starting with a clean disk.
To get the disk utility go to Seagate and look for a diagnostics disk for
hdds. It should be free and downloadable.
 
I have a Seagate ST31720A. I've formatted it for FAT16 and put bootable DOS
on it, but when I try to boot it it says "Dynamic Drive Overlay v 7.11" and
wants me to insert a floppy disk. I've tried Seagate DiscWizard to set up
the disk, but it wants to install a whole operating system (a Windows, which
I don't want). I don't need all this crap. I just want it to be an ordinary
hard disk that will boot the way _I_ want it to boot, not the way it wants
to, even if it won't work to its full capability. How can I do that?

David
Click to expand...

Boot up the Seagate Tools floppies or CD, and do a quick
zero fill, which will remove the DDO the easiest/fastest way
possible. Of course that also gets rid of the data on the
drive, and it'll need partitioned/formatted/etc again.
There's probably something on Seagate's website that will
remove the DDO too, but offhand I dont' recall what.
 
Thanks very much, Jan and kony. The zero fill is also in DiscWizard and it's
okay now.

David
 
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