On Tue, Dec 18, 2001 at 04:06:56PM +0100, Emiel Metselaar wrote:
...
| sys c:
I did this once. Destroyed the disk! I don't recommend doing it
again.
The story :
A few years back I acquired some antique hardware (Intel 8086
system, also a 286 mobo+cpu and 25MB MFM hard disk, 2 360K
floppies, and a 486 mobo+cpu+8MB ram). Of course I wanted to play
with it and make it as good as I could (I didn't have any other
stuff either). I took out the 8086 mobo and (with a little case
hacking) stuck the 286 in there. I got the hard drive to work,
but was booting MS-DOS 3.3 off of a floppy. When I got the 486
I stuck it in, but it wouldn't boot most of the time. With the
286 in the system I wanted to be able to boot off the hard disk
and not need a floppy. I didn't want to reformat it because I had
already put a bunch of stuff on the disk. My dad suggested the
'sys' utility. So I tried it : ([] denotes an aside, <> denotes
user action with the machine)
A:\> sys c:
Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
[Huh? It _is_ the disk]
<return>
Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
[this can't be good]
<return>
Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
<alt-ctrl-del>
Please insert a disk into drive C and press return ...
[uh-oh, I can't even reboot, ^C and ESC didn't work either]
<turns off power>
<turns power back on>
A:\> C:
some error message, I don't remember exactly
[what? what's happening now?]
A:\> chkdsk c:
[wow, this thing is really hosed!]
Supposedly I could have done a low-level format, then
repartitioned and formatted the disk, but I still have no idea how
to do a low-level format. Instead I got out a screwdriver and
disected the disk. (it was free, outdated, and now busted)
I have successfully installed woody, then later win2k on a
single-harddrive laptop. I made a backup bootdisk before installing
win2k since it doesn't ask before stomping over the MBR. With that
boot floppy I was able to boot linux again and fix the MBR, and
haven't had any problems with it since.
-D
--
If your company is not involved in something called "ISO 9000" you
probably have no idea what it is. If your company _is_ involved in ISO
9000 then you definitely have no idea what it is.
(Scott Adams - The Dilbert principle)
