Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!cs.utexas.edu!helios!maraba.tamu.edu!cnh5730
From: cnh5730@maraba.tamu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: can you initialize the HD from the workspace manager disk option (help)
Message-ID: <17688@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 23 Jun 91 18:53:54 GMT
References: <556@daily-planet.concordia.ca>
Sender: usenet@helios.TAMU.EDU
Lines: 33

In article <556@daily-planet.concordia.ca> stefanos@concour.cs.concordia.ca  
(KIAKAS stefanos) writes:
  i seem to have erased my hard disk. i was logged in as root and had
  a floppy disk in the disk drive
   [... stuff deleted ...]
  i selected the disk option from the workspace manager menu and selected
  initialize. the message that appears when you want to initialize a disk 
  appearded on the screen. i clicked on the mouse button figuring
  that i would format the floppy disk and that is when the panic message 
  appeared to the screen.   

  so can you initialize the hard disk by using the disk oprtion in the
  workspace manager menu as i have done? (is it this easy to do so?)

-- yes. Unfortunately, this has happened before.

  what can i do now to get the system up again?

-- Most likely, you're going to have to rebuild your system hard disk. Contact
 the folks who sold you the system and explain that you need to do a builddisk
 on the internal hard disk. As a worst-case scenario, you might have to have a 
NeXT-certified service provider remove the hard disk from your system and ship
 it to NeXT to have the OS re-installed (this takes about an hour). As a 
best-case scenario, you'll have a NeXT campus consultant near by whom you can 
contact.

There is a possibility that you can re-install the boot-block on the system, 
but in my experience, under these circumstances, when the panic monitor comes 
up, you're done. By the way, you have done no physical damage to the hard disk, 
and your system should be just fine after a builddisk is done. 

Hope you had your data backed up. And I'm sure we all really hope NeXT changes 
this "feature" in some future version of the OS.