Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!samsung!usc!ucsd!wintermute!steve
From: steve@wintermute.ucsd.edu ({Darkavich})
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Hard drive problem
Keywords: Seagate, boot, disk
Message-ID: <11863@ucsd.Edu>
Date: 20 Feb 90 17:47:11 GMT
References: <267@menno.UUCP>
Sender: news@ucsd.Edu
Reply-To: steve@wintermute.ucsd.edu ({Darkavich})
Organization: University of California, San Diego
Lines: 23


Before you pannic and reformat your drive you should try a couple of things
first.  When this happens I try these things first.  1) try moving the unit
90 degres, if on its side put it on its back or vice versa.  This usually
works.  2) try looking at the cables in the machine, they may be loose or
in need of replace.  I always keep a spare set of cable around.  (they are
only $3-4.  A great investment when they go bad.  If neither of these work
then try booting from a floppy and switch to the C: drive (this will only
work on the first disk partition) if you can read all the files but not
boot from it then transfer the system files over.  This has some random
behaviours depending on how your disk partitions were set up.  I believe
(don't quote me on this) that fdisk partitions that have an extended
partition will get messed up.  This happened to me a long long time ago and
I do not remember if this was the definate cause.  If all else fails then
reformat the drive.  It is always a good idea to do a low level format of
the drive when reformating because it will look for bad sectors on the
drive and mark them off if they exist. you can get software that will automate
the entire format procedure. 
	
	Hope this helps.

	Steve Misrack
	steve@ucsd.edu