I agree with tring the re-partition and format (even try formatting it a
couple times). But if it doesn't format a "good" format, I would say it
is time to get another drive.
Good luck,
Don
-----Original Message-----
From: PCBUILD - Personal Computer Hardware discussion List
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Peter Wennersten
Sent: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 6:34 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [PCBUILD] Do I need to re-partition?
Dear All,
I have a problem, I think, and would like advise on it if possible.
I have an IBM Thinkpad 570 running Win98 (SE?) Swedish. My 4 gig hard
drive is partitioned into C: and D:. C is slightly bigger and shows as
just above 2 gig whereas D: is around 1.8 gig. C: is FAT16 and D: is
FAT32. These are all IBM defaults. I have never changed any settings for
the hard drive.
Recently my computer crashed when I was running Norton Disk Doctor. It
was accessing the boot sector when it died (it was actually Norton
Antivirus that reported NDD.EXE trying to access boot sector, but the
computer hang and I could not allow or reject access). After that I was
unable to boot from the harddrive. I could boot from diskette and
retreive my files though. Then I reformatted C:, and performed a
recovery with the IBM rescue CD-rom. It seems to work fine now. I have
recovered the system several times, not because of crashes but as way of
'cleaning up Windows'.
However, when I start Drive Image 2002 I get an error message that they
claim is very serious:
"Drive Image detected error 110 on the partition starting at sector 63
on disk 1. Length of partition in the partition table is incorrect. The
CHS is 4193217, the LBA is 4192902 and the file system length is
4193217. DI has determined that the length can be changed to the correct
value of 4913217. Would you like DI to fix this error?"
I looked up this error message (#110) in the DI manual and it said that
this problem is very serious since it may cause loss of critical system
data located at the beginning of the disk, when the hard drive fills up
and wrongly 'spans over the edge' and continues writing data at
beginning of the disk while thinking it is writing to the end of the
disk. Basically the system would think the drive is bigger than it is,
or something like that.
I should say that before the crash, I got this same message after I had
just installed Drive Image for the first time and wanted to run it. That
time I let DI fix the error, and immediately it reported the same type
of error at the end of the drive as well. I let it fix this error as
well. I used the computer during the day and in the evening when running
Disk Doctor the whole crash happened. I do not know if these two things
are related.
I have ran several hard drive tests (IBM drive fitness test, PC-Doctor,
Scandisk, Checkdisk) but none report any problems. A utility from
Ontrack could not diagnose C: because it could not be recognised in some
way, but FDISK reports an active FAT16 partition on C:. Only a Drive
Image utility called PARTINFO gives information on the partition and
reports problems, although now under error code #108. I paste a few
lines (I have the rest of the report file if anyone is interested):
Disk 0: 993 Cylinders, 128 Heads, 63 Sectors/Track.
BiosExtensions: 0x100 Subsets (0x00000003): Access Lock/Eject The BIOS
supports INT 13h extensions for this drive. ============================
Partition Tables ==============================
Partition -----Begin----
------End----- Start Num
Sector # Boot Cyl Head Sect FS Cyl Head
Sect Sect Sects
------------------
- ---- ---- ---- ---- -- ---- ---- ----
---------- ----------
0 0 80 [ 0 1 1] 0E [
519 127 63] 63 4192902 [Large Drive Placeholders]
0 1 1
519 122 63 Actual Values
Error #108: Partition didn't end on cylinder boundary.
ucEndHead expected to be 127, not 122.
0 1 00 [ 520 0 1] 0F [
991 127 63] 4193280 3814272 [Large Drive Placeholders]
520 0 1
992 127 63 Actual Values
4193280 0 00 520 1 1 0B 992 127
63 4193343 3814209
=======================================================================
==========
Disk 0: 3909.9 Megabytes
============================= Partition Information
==============================
Volume Partition Partition
Start Total
Letter:Label Type Status Size
MB Sector # Sector Sectors
------------- --------------- -------- -------
---------- - ---------- ----------
C:AKBAR FAT16X Pri,Boot 2047.3 0
0
63 4192902
ExtendedX Pri 1862.4
0 1 4193280 3814272
EPBR Log 1862.4
None - 4193280 3814272
D:JEFF FAT32 Log 1862.4 4193280
0 4193343 3814209
What can I do in this situation? DI does say it can fix the problem by
setting the file sectors lengths to be the same. But last time allowed
it to do this and then I ended up with a disk crash so I am wary.
On the other hand, the system seems to be working fine anyway and maybe
it is not as serious as it seems as long as I don't fill up my hard
drive? I don't know.
I asked IBM support and they said that I might want to wipe everything
and re-partition. Is this the only option? Does anyone have experience
of Drive Image fixing errors like mine?
Does anyone have ideas about this?
Sincerely,
Peter Wennersten
PCBUILD's List Owners:
Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>
PCBUILD's List Owners:
Bob Wright<[log in to unmask]>
Drew Dunn<[log in to unmask]>
|