Hi, I know you can help. Recently installed zonelabs with new virus monitor. ran monitor overnight for the first time and sys hung. since then I get "disk boot failure" with start-up. Sys does not start in safe mode. also get the following when using boot disk "C does not contain valid FAT / FAT 32 partition. Scandisk reveals no problems. fdisk gives the following "No Fixed Disks". A:\>sys C: produces following "cannot find sys file in standard locations on C. Use win setup to make C: bootable. Please help. I do not know how to use setup to make C bootable. I am brand new at this so step-by-step info would help greatly. Thanks

Hi Not sure of your system specs. Do you have a Dynamic Disk Overlay installed on the drive. (usually installed to allow a larger drive than the bios can see.) I suggest you post your problem in the ME forum. In this new question, you need to state what your machine is Pentium? and MHz it runs at. If there is a brand mane on the machine that would be good as well. Reference this question, to save other suggesting similar things. Next list hard drive size - if you don't know just the brand and model number listed in the bios screen will do. Next confirm the system memory is ok. Use Memtest86 and download the floppy and/or cd iso version. Its a bootable memory diagnostic. Next visit the hard drive's manufactures website and get the diagnostic. Create the bootable floppy diagnostic and run. In your question that you post in ME let them know if the diagnostic found any errors. Was the boot disk you used, for ME? ME sys files are slightly different to 98. If you have found no errors so far, then I'd suspect partition table damage. If this is the case you want to copy any remaining data in the partition table, byte for byte, up to and including where the end partition table marker should be. (meaning backup the MBR and partition table) You could use Disk investigator to make sure to two signature bytes are present. (55AA) The end of a standard partition table is about 512 bytes from the start of the hard disk. Disk Investigator DIY link about partitions MBRtool 2.2 which is a free tool which should be able to back up the mbr and check the signature bytes. Once you are sure the partition signature is in place you can move to investigate the partition table. You could use many tools - some are free eg Ranish. Runtime.orgA program for file recovery.

Wow, thank you! I will certainly try the above. I just want to make sure of a couple of things. I want to try and save as much of the data as possible. With this in mind, the exact order of doing the above is: 1 Memtest 2 Manufacturer diagnostic for the HD 3 Post to ME forum with better details 4 Use MBRtool 2.2 5 Use Disk investigator 6 Use tools to investigate partition table Is that correct? Other answers: Not sure of the dynamic overlay. Pentium 3. Not sure on MHz. Hard drive: Quantum Fireball AS. Yes it is a ME boot disk. More info. Upon startup there is a lot of noise eg. Clack, clack. Some web sites suggest to have pro's look at it. Once again thank you for the advice. I am learning more every day.

Hi You have summed it up well. Having a second think about it, few things spring to mind. First disconnect the hard drive when you run memtest. There is no need to power up the hard drive while doing a memory test, and if it is the drive failing, you don't want to aggravate the drive any further. If there are errors found, you will need to fix that first before proceding. When you run the drive diagnostic (link below) you may find errors. You will then be looking at retreiving data from the drive. Disk Investigator would need to be installed on another drive. If the MBR tool can write the signature you may not need to use Disk Investigator. (its a handy exercise anyhow to have a look at the first bit of the drive) -- - - - - - - - Ok ME boot disk -- good, I not real familiar with ME but even if it worked the same as 98 you should have got c: at the very least. Maxtor bought out quantum. Quantum still or another company of the same name does large industry use data storage stuff. This means you have to use the Maxtor site which the fireball AS is not listed under the quantum drives. (I have old slow dialup connection so their site was a pain to use, so it might have been listed under anther heading, but I didn't have all day to do that.) Anyhow Maxtor only have 1 diagnostic which works for Maxtor and some quantum drives. Powermax link The clack clack is the little arm inside hitting the stopper each time it resets when the read heads can't find any information. If its doing this through startup more than just a couple of times there could be problems. If the clacking is constant after it passes through the bios startup phase, turn the machine off. (You completed scandisk so I don't think its doing that - clacking constantly) If the quantum drive is failing, you will have to install a new master drive and the quantum as slave to retrieve any info, if at all possible.