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From: BL.JPL@forsythe.stanford.edu (Jonathan Lavigne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: FAT problems
Message-ID: <5254@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Date: 19 Oct 89 04:21:45 GMT
Sender: news@lindy.Stanford.EDU (News Service)
Distribution: usa
Lines: 28

In article <1989Oct15.220849.21435@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu>,
gejohann@uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu (Gene Edward Johannsen) writes:
>
>I've got problems.  Recently my FAT has become _slightly_ messed up.  It's
>not because of a virus or anything. Its just one of those things that happen
>now and then.  The error causes CHKDSK to think that my C: drive is not a DOS
>disk and the Norton Utilities doesn't think my C: drive is a hard disk, except
>for the DISK TEST program that doesn't see anything wrong at all.
>
>Anyway, I know that there are two copies of the FAT on my disk and everything
>works okay using the backup, I would still like to fix my FAT--without
>reformatting if possible.
I, too, recently had a problem with the FAT on my hard disk. CHKDSK
gave the "Probable non-DOS disk " message and, for some reason, the
settings in my CONFIG.SYS file didn't take effect. Someone told me
to see whether the first two bytes of the FAT were "F8FF". In fact,
they were "F7FF". Since the same person said he didn't think the FAT
problem had any effect on my CONFIG.SYS difficulties, I decided to
reformat my disk anyway. After I did, all the problems vanished,
and, sure enough, the first two bytes in the FAT now read "F8FF". If
the first two bytes in the two copies of the FAT on your hard disk
aren't "F8FF", you might try changing them using Norton or something
similar. Of course I wouldn't do anything of that kind without
backing up the disk and assuming that I might have to reformat.

Jonathan Lavigne                 BL.JPL@RLG.STANFORD.EDU
Research Libraries Group
Stanford University