power outage - invalid system disk

This is loads of fun. the power went out for a split second and 2 of the
computers in my house restarted and now work fine... while one just
flickered off and came right back on to the desktop... but it was frozen.
couldnt use the mouse. so i restarted it and now it says on startup that
there is an invalid system disk. what do i need to do to fix it? should I
try fdisk /mbr ? i cant format it because theres important data on it....
and putting it in another computer and copying the data is the last thing i
wanna do... any suggestions? thanks

 

I would remove the disk and put in a working computer as a slave. Then you
should be able to access the drive and copy the data you need. That is of
course if the drive is not completely dead.

 

Do not even try to fix anything yet. Simply and first
collect facts. For example, boot from a diskette or CD-ROM,
then confirm the disk hardware is intact. Simply read from -
don't write to - the hard drive. Don't even worry about disk
software for the moment and definitely do not yet do the fdisk
/mbr . First establish hardware integrity.

BTW, if the manufacturer had any value, then his (free)
comprehensive diagnostics could quickly verify disk and disk
interface integrity.

BTW, proper power control and reset circuit design on that
motherboard should have made the power outage cause a Master
Reset - reboot the computer without problems. For whatever
reason, that computer might have a defective-by-design POR
circuit design.

What type of OS and what type of filesystem? NTFS or FATxx?

 

I booted up to dos with a win98 floppy and i could read the data on the
drive it just wont boot to the OS (win2000 on a FAT32 partition)

 

Try a cold start first.

 

You have provided important information. First, don't use
any DOS to write to or repair that hard drive. DOS drive
repair programs do not understand FAT32 even though it can
read FAT32 files. Use the Win2000 CD-ROM to execute the setup
or install program. When it asks (before it will write
anything to disk), tell setup to repair - not reload - the
OS. A list of things to verify will including registry and
boot records. Have it repair the boot records.

Background: the mbr for Win 2000 (Windows NT type) is
different from that for other Windows and DOS. Each mbr is
created unique from hard drive parameters. You must let Win
2000 setup program construct a unique mbr and verify that
other unique files exist in the root directory.

Now for why files may have been deleted. Before even
Windows 98 existed, MS had already obsoleted FAT filesystems.
FAT filesystems has numerous weaknesses. They were the quick
solution to create a working DOS. FAT was obsoleteed by HPFS
which in turn was obsoleted by NTFS. Before Win 98 was
created, NTFS had solved problems such as power loss causing
existing files on FAT hard drive to be erased.

Once you get everything back, then consider NTFS to avoid
future problems or get a UPS to protect FAT filesystem data
from future damage.

 

I got it solved. I ran the recovery console off the Win 2000 CD-ROM and ran
fixboot. it was simple i wish i would have thought of it in the first place.
thanks for the help guys

 

Now use the convert program to change that FAT32 filesystem
to NTFS. NTFS eliminates future disk problems so common with
FAT filesystems. For example, NTFS does not even use
Scandis. NTFS filesystems are so robust as to even repair
themselves.

 

Some of the problems

No, they use chkdsk

Sometimes

 

W_Tom is a very well known usenet kook. He has been known to post advice that
could literally kill people by electrocution, yet he will NEVER acknowlege he is
wrong regardless of proof presented. To say he is dangerous is pobably an
understatement.

Expect him to respond to this with his usual crap about no one else knowing what
THEY are talking about. He's a fruitcake, and a menace.

BB

 

I was wondering when this post would finally get to this point. everyone has
to argue all the time. Well dont wate your time. I am not converting to NTFS
anyways because i need dos to read the partition so thanks for letting me
know tom but no thanks.

 

I also use some old DOS programs on many NT systems. I
setup a small FAT partition so that I can run DOS programs
that must directly access hardware - therefore cannot run on
Windows NT. Should I need to read files on the NTFS
partition, I use a free utility provided by
http://www.sysinternals.com/ called NTFSDOS. A better
version (that costs money) lets DOS write to the NTFS
filesystem.

Do not use DOS on a FAT32 partition. It will appear to
work. Then suddenly FAT32 corruption is created by DOS. DOS
must have FAT12 or FAT16 partitions. DOS can cause mysterious
problems to FAT32 partitions.

 

More complete nonsense from the master of making things up!

BB

 

[email protected]++.com wrote in

He's right. DOS can cause mysterious problems with FAT32 partitions,
possibly because DOS DOESN'T SUPPORT FAT32 PARTITIONS!

 

The versions of win9x that support fat32 include a version of dos that supports
fat32. Nothing mysterious about it.

BB

 

DOS 7.x do! I have a FAT32 partition, with which DOS7.x has no trouble,
even from a DOS window in Win98.

Even debug, which is about as close to the metal you can get, works OK.
I haven't ever seen any "mysterious problems". When I first got Win98,
I made a FAT16 partition for my old DOS programs. Now I routinely run
old DOS programs like SuperCalc 5, from a FAT32 partition. I can even
copy data to/from FAT12 floppies.

You do have to be sure not to use old DOS16 programs that directly
access a FAT32 partition. This is lousy programming with any OS. There
are some new DOS programs that work with FAT32 disk partitions directly.

Virg Wall

 

I think some people confuse "long file names support" with "fat32 support". They
are two very separate things. Nothing is mysterious if you know what is going
on.

BB

 

You can even have the best, (or better anyway), of both worlds. Get
Odi's LFN Tools from:

http://www.odi.ch/

Worth having around if you still work in both worlds.

Virg Wall