Does anyone know how to remove an overlay from a hard disk? I suspect that my D:\ has an overlay on it because the DOS 7.1 FDISK will not see past 504 MB, neither will the version from WinME. Formatting from the BIOS doesn't do anything, it removes data and partitions, and just about anything except overlays. And if a drive is bigger than 512 MB, shouldn't a DOS version earlier than 7.10 stop at 512 instead of 504? My drive may also have some bad sectors/cylinders.

Thanks,
jkid

If any of those "bad" sectors are in the first two tracks of the disk drive, it can cause problems.

The first issue you left out is, what size disk drive does the BIOS see and setup? FDISK will only use what BIOS reports. You need to go into BIOS CMOS Setup and check this (or the adapter setup if an add-in card). True, an overlay will modify this, but it should not be active if you boot directly to a diskette. The BIOS level format should clear any overlay, unless it is a Compaq BIOS or like that reserves a few tracks for its diagnostic overlay. If it is a Compaq system, to get rid of its overlay, you have to FDISK/Format it on a different machine.

Issuing the fdisk /mbr command will remove any disk overlay software you may have.

-Michael

You do not say the make of your drive. A seach for the makers site will yeald the correct software to return your HD to a single partition ready to format.

Please reply with a message to let us all know we are on the right track with your problem

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal

My hard drive is a Western Digital Caviar 21600 1.6 GB. The BIOS in my system says 1549 MB, which is about right.

Cylinders: 3148
Heads: 16
WPcom: 65535
Landing Zone: 3148
Sectors: 63

Does this help any?
jkid

jkid,

Is the HD setting in your BIOS correct? "CHS", "LBA" or "Large"?

Do you have any screenshot of FDISK running on your HD?

Hi

Lots of different ideas above.

I suggest start from known point. Completely blank drive, so use killdisk or other zeroing utility.

Try fdisk then.

500 -528 MB was a bios limitation for some motherboards.

However if you still experience trouble after checking the above suggestions, try jumpering both the ma and cs pins for master setting and sl on its own for slave. {don't know why that works for a couple caviar drives but it does allow the bios to see the full drive. I ended up with and still use a 21000 which had similar problems}

Download page for Western Digital Diagnostic Software is:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

from here you can also access the rest of Western Digitals Knowledge Base.

Please reply with a message to let us all know we are on the right track with your problem

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal

P.S. It does sound as if your 486 has a upper limit which is probably why it had a overlay installed in the first place. WD Diagnostics should tell you that as well.

Please reply with a message to let us all know we are on the right track with your problem

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal

Hi again

For a true diagnostic, you'll probably need wddiag which is older again then any of the utilities archived at WD for download.

Once again if you are satisfied that you have a valid bios setting, ensured you bios is not limited to 500 - 528 MB, then try the jumper pin idea.

<anenefan> Notice at bottom of WD Page:

Notice:
For users familiar with our EZ-Drive, WDDiag, WDATA66, and WDTblchk programs, these utilities have been replaced with our new Data Lifeguard Tools software. Data Lifeguard Tools is a software suite that combines all of our EIDE drive installation and management utilities into one easy to use program. The utilities are also available separately.

As the WD Caviar 21600 1.6 GB is not in general terms that old I would think that the Data Lifeguard Tools would do the job.

However - If you want a copy of WDDiag v2.90 (Dated 31/01/99) you can still download it from here:

http://www1.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/wd/hrddrive/wd_diag.exe

Description:

v2.90. Contains Wddiag.exe v2.90 which allows you to test the drive, print results for last drive tested, repair errors found during the Test Drive option and write zeros to the drive (low-level format). This utility replaces Wd_clear (which was used for scanning errors "Read Verify" and low- level formatting capabilities). Wd_diag.exe also replaces Wdat_ide.exe for scanning and defect management. A user's guide for this utility is available below. Note: You should continue to use Wdat_ide.exe if you own one of the following older model WD Caviar hard drives: AC140, AC160, AC280, AC2120, AC2170, AC2200.

http://www1.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/wd/hrddrive/wddiag.pdf

NOTE - Thse utilities are ONLY for WD Drives.

Please reply with a message to let us all know we are on the right track with your problem

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal

wd_diag and other old utilities for Western Digital hard disk drives.
http://www1.vobis.de/bbs/firmen/wd/hrddrive/
http://ftp.yars.free.net/pub/software/msdos/drivers/hdd/
http://www.peteweb.com/ftp/mirrors/wdc/hdutil/
http://www.pipeline.com.au/Internet/UserServ/FTP.HTM
Good luck.

Hi

Good links both Mick C and Petit Jean (thanks for the maxtor diagnostic link you posted a week or so ago, I don't think I have a copy of that version yet).

As a side note: always be aware of "this program has been replaced with ..." tactic, sometimes they really do come up trumps, but sometimes some of the functionality of the older program is lost.

Hence giving you the location of the older version!

But sometimes the newer version will have added features for later versions of product, which may or may not benefit all users... Its down to trail and error sometimes.

Please reply with a message to let us all know we are on the right track with your problem

Report Offensive Follow Up For Removal