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From: mark@certes.UUCP (Mark Guidotti)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: NEED HELP
Keywords: crashed disk, boot sector, partition table, utility, disk doctor
Message-ID: <4260@.certes.UUCP>
Date: 11 May 89 01:36:13 GMT
Organization: Teradyne/ALSIWest, Inc.,  Milpitas, CA
Lines: 38

Recently, I downloaded a "disk utility" from the OMTI bulletin board in
Mountain View, CA.  The utility is named "HDTEST" and was written by
Jim Bracking.  It is supposed to provide information on disk performance,
which includes interleave optimization.  It also can do a low level drive
format.

I ran this utility on several computers without problems, and was delighted
with the speed improvement resulting from optimized interleave.

HOWEVER, when I ran it on my HOME machine, both 40MB drives suffered what
appears to be damage to track zero, the boot track.  The symptom is that
when the machine is booted, DOS notes that the boot sector is bad and thereafter
refuses to "cd" to either drive C: or D:.  (Drive D: has an extended partition,
Drive E:)  System is DOS 3.30.  The hardware is ok, as other disk utilities 
perform verification without error.

Facing 80MB of data with now way to access it is, to say the least, a chief
factor in my now elevated blood pressure.  I do have a backup, so please, no
lectures.  I would like to avoid the tedium of restoring the disk from 
floppies and would like to learn something from this mishap.  Therefore, I
would like to hear from anyone who knows what goes on in the boot sector
and particularly from anyone who either has or has access to, a utility prog
which can restore or at least allow me to edit track zero.

Norton utilities V3.0 are particularly useless, since they allow editing
only of a disk which DOS recognizes as valid.  Since DOS does not recognize
mine in their current state, Norton won't do the job.

Please e-mail answers to me at the address below, rather than posting to
the net.  Telephone calls are welcome.  If there is sufficient interest or 
technical information, I will be happy to post a summary once my problem is 
resolved one way or the other. 

Thanks in advance for not lecturing.  I hope to learn something great.

Mark Guidotti
Teradyne, Inc.  408-434-0822
........sun!teraida!certes!mark