Path: utzoo!utgpu!cunews!bnrgate!bwdls58!mlord From: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc Subject: Re: help: peculiar msdos 3.3 crash Message-ID: <4468@bwdls58.UUCP> Date: 1 Oct 90 21:26:39 GMT References: Sender: mlord@bwdls58.UUCP Reply-To: mlord@bwdls58.bnr.ca (Mark Lord) Distribution: comp Organization: Bell-Northern Research, Ottawa, Canada Lines: 35 In article pollack@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: >After some software anomolies, I decided to run a disk optimizer >(fastrax), which had me run chkdsk first. It found problems in a >hidden file ibmbio.com among others, and truncated it. Not knowing the >significance at the time, I compacted away. Later, when my machine >wouldn't boot, I deleted and copied both ibmbio.com and ibmdos.com >several ways, ("sys" didnt work), but cannnot solve it and I suspect >some directory tinkering might. I am runing msdos 3.30 on a zenith >supersport286e. > >I know I can fully back up my disk, then reformat it, and run >install and sys, but that will take many hours and floppies. Do any >experts know a shorter way? Thanks in advance. Assuming SYS C: from a floppy does not work, dig out the Norton Utilities version 4.5 or greater, and run diskfix. There is a "Make disk bootable" option under one of the submenus ("Common problems" or something). Run it. If you lack norton, buy it. Otherwise, try something like this: IF your disk defrag program (fastrax) likes to group files from the same directory physically together on the disk, you can make space at the start of your disk as follows: copy IBMBIO.COM from a floppy into a file on the hard drive called AAAAAAAA.AAA. Remove the system/readonly/hidden (shr--) attributes for now, so fastrax will not ignore it. Now run fastrax, fasttrax, and it ought to place AAAAAAAA.AAA physically first (assuming it does a physical sort as noted previously). After it completes, rename the AAAAAAAA.AAA file to IBMBIO.COM, give it the correct attributes (shr--), and try rebooting. Good Luck. -- ___Mark S. Lord__________________________________________ | ..uunet!bnrgate!mlord%bmerh724 | Climb Free Or Die (NH) | | MLORD@BNR.CA Ottawa, Ontario | Personal views only. | |________________________________|________________________|