Hello All,

I have a very very old harddrive, I believe the size is somewhere around 50MB, that's right, MB, not GB! The harddrive is running an unknown version of DOS, and contains DOS-based programs and archives required to program some older 2-way radio equipment still in use in the field. The computer that this harddrive was installed in has died. I am looking to copy the entire contents of the harddrive to another computer, and then the files that are needed by technicians can be copied to a floppy and used on another laptop.

I physically installed the harddrive as a secondary master drive in a desktop PC running Windows 98SE. Upon double clicking "My Computer", the drive is physically displayed as D:\, however, once I single click on the drive, the computer begins to move VERY slowly, and the mouse gets a mind of its own, doing things such as highlighting icons on the desktop, etc. This occurs for about 10 seconds, and all goes back to normal, but it never displays the contents on the drive, nor does it give me any type of error. The volume label displayed by "My Computer" is a bunch of funky characters. If I right-click on the drive and click properties, it reports the drive is about 43 MB, and is a FAT partition. Not FAT 12, 16, 32, just plain old FAT.

For experimental reasons, I went to DOS, created a flat text file on C:\, and copied it to D:\. I received a writing error, but it still copied successfully. After this point, I was able to switch to D:\, do a directory listing, and at least SEE some garbage (the text.txt file).

Going to the DOS-prompt from within Windows also does not help. I am able to switch to D:, but when I try to do a directory listing, I am told "File Not Found".

I have tried installing the harddrive as the only one in the machine, but after the PC BIOS executes, I am prompted with the message "Operating System Not Found".

All of the above symptoms make me believe that I cannot access the FAT partition from a FAT 32 partition (the Win 98 machine). Is there any way around this? Why would I not be able to boot right from the FAT hard drive if DOS is a valid installed OS on the partition?

I have also tried clicking on Start -> Shut Down -> Restart in MS-DOS Mode, and access the disk from there with no luck.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Too long to read entirely - 'FAT' is the generic term for FAT12, FAT16, etc - don't read too much into it

"believe that I cannot access the FAT partition from a FAT 32 partition"

Nope - that's just wrong

'Funky characters' usually indicate corruption - bad partition table or the like - probably the disk has sustained damage or the data has gotten scrambled

You can try running scandisk or NDD from DOS etc., with the drive slaved

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If it just says FAT then it's FAT16.

What is the model # of the drive? Older PCs used drive types which may not be the same as what an AUTO bios setting would be. You would need to ID the drive the same way as it was in the old computer in order to access it.

Here's a recent thread where that was discussed:

http://www.computing.net/dos/wwwboard/forum/16146.html

I do this all the time and generally the hdd is ok and the data can be accessed without problem.

I would not try writing anything to the hdd, just in case.

Have you tried installing it as a primary slave. To do this you may have to change the current master strap settings.

Possibly the params may have been set up incorrectly in the bios.

When you are able to read the hdd, copy the data to the 'other' hdd. Then consider transfer method. You advise floppy, but email or laplink might be better.

Good Luck - Keep us posted.

Did you

I guess I should say it's probably FAT16. Dos versions before 4.0 only supported fat12. The maximum partition size for fat12 is 16 meg. But, as jboy mentioned, whichever one it is, your fat32 system will see it OK.

I'm pretty sure DOS3xx supported (up to) 32Mb partitions - DOS2xx (the first 'hard drive DOS') had the FAT12 16Mb limit.

Disk repair/file recovery is best accomplished from DOS, either by booting from a floppy or connected to a bootable system

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DAVEINCAPS,

Is my best bet to go to the manufacturer's website to get the ID information for the drive? I can't remember who makes the drive off the top of my head, but it was a name I was not familiar with.

I looked at the thread you recommended and it seemed to work for that guy. I will try this when I get home and keep you posted.

Thanks for everyone who provided suggestions.

If you have the model number we can find the necessary information. Like the previous thread it may just be a type 17. The available space is about right.

Jboy, I thought about that after I posted. I used dos 3.3 with single partitioned 30 meg drives. I checked a few places and it seems 3.3 doesn't support fat16 so I guess my info on the maximum fat12 partition size was wrong. But I found that information on the internet! How could it be wrong?

Here is the information from the drive.

Conner CP3000

One sticker on the back, with four barcodes and a final line with three more numbers. From top to bottom, the numbers read:

E395MQ

CP3000

ALG01

9225

DW06635 ALL2.48 ML2 T

Any follow up recommendations and BIOS settings are highly appreciated.

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/largepdf_conner.html

Drive type 17 should work. If your bios doesn't have those setting then do it manually. The cylinders/heads/sectors settings would be 977/5/17. Precomp and landing zone shouldn't matter.

Then boot up the computer and see if you can access the drive.

"But I found that information on the internet! How could it be wrong?"

Truly mystifyin' ; )

I think it's because you can find *anything* on the internet

My first PC had a 32Mb drive, under DOS 3.31 (or thereabouts) - and a few times I'd encountered 40Mb drives partitioned as 32/8 (doubtless upgrades)

Sure, 'type 17' (40Mb) was a pretty common setting at one time

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When I used the BIOS settings for Drive Type 17, the volume name in My Computer was still a bunch of garbage characters and not accessible. I took the values from the manufacturers web site, which differed a little from standard type 17, and put those in. I also disabled 32-bit mode, and turned LBA OFF. After rebooting, the drive was now clearly displayed as D:\, but still not accessible. I forget the exact Windows error I was getting.

The other settings I tried to mess around with were Block Mode, and PIO. I tried enabling and disabling block mode, and toggling the PIO mode from 0 to 4. Still no success.

Does it sound like the drive is damaged? When I copied that plain text file to the drive, could that have been what caused the damage?

"Does it sound like the drive is damaged?"

Well, it did two days ago, so... that's still a 'yeah'

To repeat: data recovery or repair is best attempted from DOS

Whatever

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The C/H/S figures I gave (977,5,17) were the type 17 translation parameters so older PCs with only drive type capabilities could use the drive. The actual figures should be 1045,2,40, which is what autodetect should find. But if the drive was originally partitioned as type 17 (or whatever) you'd need to use those parameters instead of the actual ones.

The actual translation for the CP3000 is 980,5,17. You can try those figures also but I don't think it'll make any difference.

I gave you the 977 figure because if it was partitioned as type 17 that would have been the one that was used.

So either it wasn't partitioned as type 17 or it's corrupted as Jboy suggests.

There's a 733,7,17 drive type that's close to 40 meg. It's usually type 14 and 21. (The difference is the precomp.) You might try that one too.

I've been relying on an old PC Ref book. It didn't show a precomp for that drive. But if the info you got shows one, be sure to use it.

jboy,

Are you always this arrogant and condescending when people simply ask for help on things they aren't too familiar with? You must be one of those people who falsely believe they are experts on the world.

Thanks to all those who kindly helped, with one exception, obviously.

Hi Smitty - I would try installing the hdd as the only hdd in an old pc and boot dos from a floppy.

Trying various hdd params in the bios.

The hdd may have more than one partition.

Check the hdd size 'seen' by the bios.

If you can find the data sheets for the hdd from the makers website, they may help with the params setting(s).

Sometimes there are more than one setting for the same model and one has to work thorough them.

I think this advice has been given previously in this thread, but is buried amongst the many replies. I would not attempt writing and/or repairing as this could lose the data you require.

Good Luck - Keep us posted.

I just created a DOS 3.3 bootdisk and will take it home this evening and try it. Do you guys think this is the correct version of DOS to initally try?

Are there any initial repair/recovery commands I should try on the drive first?

TIA

Dos 3.3 probably won't see the entire drive since it's limited to drives up to around 30 meg. So anything newer than 3.3 should be OK.

It'd be a good idea to use an older version of Norton Utilities when working with the drive. It's got NDD (Norton Disk Doctor) which is comparable to but better than dos versions of scandisk. There's also a SYSINFO command that gives info about your hardware. It will give info on your partition tables which may help in identifying the drive's original drive type.

If the drive isn't identified in cmos the way it was in the original computer and you run NDD or dos scandisk it will probably detect problems and ask if you want them fixed. If you 'fix' them then most likely you'll never be able to recover the data.

If the drive is identified the same as in the old computer, running NDD or scandisk and fixing any errors may make it possible to recover the data. So you need the make sure the drive is identifed right before you run any recovery software. (Well you can run it, just don't make any changes until you're sure.)

I can email you norton utilities 8.0 for dos. The commands I mentioned above, NDD and SYSINFO, are stand-alone and can be copied to your dos bootdisk.

If you e-mail me that I would appreciate it. Please send it to matrixrld411@yahoo.com

I'm going to send the necessary files to run NDD and SYSINFO. The entire norton folder is about 9 meg so at least for now I won't send it all.

I noticed while testing these files on a 340 meg drive on an emachine that LBA for the drive should be turned off in cmos/bios setup. It should be set for C/H/S. Also I was using a dos 6.22 bootdisk.