BOOT PROBLEM-WIN98 PC Sun am 4-4-04 I woke up to find that Scheduled ScanDisk was unable to complete : due to a problem with “…Long Filename..”-- but I couldn’t find the file to delete. Next I tried to run Scandisk & Defrag—& both report: “A disk utility has locked the disk.” So—I Tried to reboot ,but rec’d error ms : “Invalid System Disk.” [But there is no disk in floppy.] I’m Not able to enter Safe Mode. BIOS does detect HD & all settings correct! Changed boot order –didn’t help. Booted from Emerg Disk -still No safe Mode. Using “sys c” was able to -briefly- see my C drive Directory files- but all seemed OK then. ________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ So I Decided to run SCANDISK [DOS ver?-- available on Floppy] : FAT SCAN reported :“Invalid filename,unable to fix-- Run ScanDisk for Windows.” --------------------- DIRECTORY STRUCTURE SCAN reported : “File is damaged”-- I chose to “Fix it.” & to : “Make an “UNDO” Floppy disk to undo changes ScanDisk makes.” –but this “UNDO” disk has no data on it after all! It also Reported : “ScanDisk is fixing problem that might prevent use of C:\--some files will have to be renamed/relocated to C:\ as chkdsk files.” & then reported “Directory Structure is Fixed.” ---------------------- FILE SYSTEM SCAN : “Lost clusters were probably Directories-now restored---must scan again.” & then reported : “C:\ DIR00024 must be given a new name”-- so I chose to “fix it.” It Reported : “File will now appear as File0000.CHK.” I repeated thus same process about 50 times. ------- Then I realized this was taking too long & maybe some damage might be done-?! I did one more scan—with NO repairs: DIRECTORY STRUCTURE SCAN reported : “443 invalid directories were removed; 103 invalid directories were corrected; 277 lost directories were reinstated.” FAT SCAN reported : “an invalid FAT chain in C:\ not corrected.” FILE SYSTEM SCAN reported : “254,467 lost clusters in 17,652 chains & 2 lost directories within the lost clusters.”—UhOh! SURFACE SCAN & FREE SPACE SCAN : never ran – I don’t know how to run those scans without first completing all the corrections DOS Scandisk sees fit to make. _______________________________________________________________ I now decided to check my C:\ directory again & found it consisted of some old but mostly about 200 new directories like: DIR00024 above--Running from 001-236 all created at sametime by my use of scanDisk. “46 files & 194 directories” were all that were listed –apparently only the unmodified dir’s were counted?? SUMMARY: My guess would be that the original problem was just a long filename & ScanDisk [“A disk utility has locked the disk.”] I’m guessing if I had corrected or deleted the file I would not have had any problems?-- long filenames have given me problems before; Or maybe a malware virus was preventing booting –a problem I have encountered & solved a few times before—by restoring a previous registry from Safe Mode. My PC & HD seemed to be working fine: the night before & also that morning: doing the few things I did before I tried & failed to reboot. ------------------------ I don’t think I have a Boot Virus based on the info that MS provides: “Because the [Boot] virus moves the Interrupt 12 return, the MS-DOS system memory will be 2K (2048 bytes) smaller than normal.... If your system has 640K, CHKDSK will report: 655360 Total Bytes Memory If the system is infected with a boot-sector virus, CHKDSK will report: 653312 Total Bytes Memory.” My system at boot reports: 640K, & 65536k Memory—so it seems I’m OK. BUT:Maybe another VIRUS?—April Fool’s? ----------- I guess I did damage to my files by using DOS ScanDisk?--- 1]QUESTION:are these renamed Files/Directories still useable? ------------------------ 2]QUESTION: 254,467 lost clusters in 17,652 chains & 2 lost directories within the lost clusters!— Means: Ruined HD? -------------------------- My next move would be to slave my HD to my XP PC to see what’s left of my data: 3]QUESTION:Can you connect a 5yr HD to a new MOBO-- are cables & interface going to work? ------------------ 4]QUESTION:Can you run a HD diagnostic when only booting to Emergency Floppy A? ------------- 5]QUESTION: I know I could boot to Emergency Floppy & with CDROM support run system setup—does this reinstall WIN98? & would this do any damage? ----------------

1. Possibly 2. No 3. Yes 4. Yes 5. Yes and no

Something of an epic to respond to (TMI), but let's see.. 1 Files/directories may or may not be 'useable' - (intact) but obviously problems might occur if programs are launched from locations other than their original installation. File structure is a mess and may be more trouble than it's worth to straighten out. 2 Ruined? Not necessarily, but cause for concern - keep an eye on it & backup everything essential in the future. 3 Yes - IDE drives are 40 pin and are still compatible - hook the drive up as slave or secondary master & perform a scan, rescue files etc. 4 HD diagnostic? Probably - do you mean manufacturer's diagnostic? Typically on its own bootdisk. 5 Reinstallation 'on top' of the original can be a solution, although the disk will have to be scanned. Information would be preserved, but in this case, is there any? Structure seems to have changed, may be better off with a fresh install. Use

Seems like warren & I are more or less in agreement - but his post has the advantage of brevity ; ) Use

Hooking it up as slave to another machine is a good idea but I doubt you'll be able to recover anything. Although all the ones and zeros representing your data are still on the HD, there is no longer any order to them. Although it usually doesn't work that way, scandisk made things worse by making even more changes to the FAT. When you reconnect it back on the original machine do an fdisk/mbr after booting from a bootdisk. Then fdisk again to remove the existing partition(s). Recreate the partition(s), reboot, format and reinstall the OS.