> Performance, under System, still said it was running dos mode paging.  I
went
> back and deleted the hdc key altogether.  Now there is no hard disk
controller
> listed in device manager and it is still in dos paging mode and still has
the
> "MBR modified " message.
 
> What do I do now?  Should I reformat and start from scratch?

I told you I had gone through a hair-raising experience!  But I did not
need to reformat, and I did not ultimately lose any data on the hard drive
(or even the partition settings).

After I eliminated all the hdc settings in the registry (since nothing else
had worked), I turned off the power for several minutes (not seconds), and
then restarted the machine.  I went to the setup and had it autodetect the
hard drives.  When Windows 95 launched, it Plug-n-Play detected the hard
drive controller and hard drives.  (If yours doesn't, you may want to boot
into safe mode and go to Control Panel and "add new hardware.")

I hope this works for you!

P.S.  These are some notes I wrote to myself after the incident:

Note:  When I removed the second hard drive from the computer, the computer
refused to recognize the first hard drive and would not reboot. The
solution was to go to the BIOS and permit the BIOS to auto-detect the first
hard drive.  The BIOS then added a LandZone setting it had not required
before, and then the first hard drive was
detected again.

Further Note:  Later, when I was working on another problem, the computer
refused to recognize the hard drive.  I solved this by entering the BIOS
(hitting DEL button during start-up) and manually changing the LandZone
setting to 0 (zero).  Then I rebooted and it worked correctly. I later let
the BIOS self-detect to restore the
LandZone setting.

There were times, during another problem-solving session, when that did not
work.  I then went to the BIOS, to Peripherals, and set the primary drives
(in the right column)
to be A: and B: instead of C: and D:  Then rebooting worked.

Another technique that worked when nothing else would work was to through a
complete boot (with the hard drive unrecognized) by booting off the floppy
A: rescue disk
(bootable disk).  The following time, I was able to get the hard drive to
be  recognized.

It was necessary during several of the above procedures to SHUT OFF THE
POWER for at least 15 seconds before rebooting.  A soft reboot was not
sufficient.




Regards - Michael Tabak ** [log in to unmask]

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