Re: 701C dead in the water after partition table edits

["John H. Kim" <jokim@tuna.mit.edu>]

On Sun, 21 Apr 1996, Matt Braithwaite wrote:

> Here's what happened:  with Linux fdisk, I did something rather
> unorthodox and definitely non-DOS compatible to the partition table on
> my 701C (24 MB, 5xx MB HD):  I created a second primary DOS
> partition.  Apparently DOS only likes to have one primary partition,

Not true.  DOS fdisk will only allow one primary partition, but I've
accidently created multiple DOS primary partitions and DOS saw them as
C:, D:, and E:.  There's a limit of four (five?) partitions on a disk.
If you want more than that, you make one of the partitions an extended
partition and put logical drives on it.

Of course my hard drive died like yours did soon after.  :)

Currently, I have OS/2 Boot manager, DOS, and Win95 boot on primary
partitions, with everything else (including Linux) on an extended
partition.  OS/2 Boot manager will disable all but one of the primary
partitions when you pick an OS - essential since DOS and Win95 insist
they boot off "the" primary partition.  It would be oh so much easier
if Microsoft got off their high horse...

> and the rest of the drive letters in extended partitions.  On reboot,
> the machine did everything normally, and on clearing the screen,
> touched the floppy, then the hard disk, and then locked dead,
> displaying the code `84' at the botton right.  IBM support doesn't

Had the exact same thing happen, only locked at a different code -
53 I think.  I have a 720 MB hard drive.  It happened to me after I 
repartitioned with OS/2's fdisk so IBM didn't have an excuse not to
fix it.

> Here is my theory about why this is happening:  I suspect that having
> a weird partition table tickles a BIOS bug in the routines that deal
> with the hibernate file, which obviously must understand both the
> partition table and the FAT filesystem to do what they do.

Interesting theory.  Mine locked up soon after a sector went bad on
the disk, so I just assumed it was a hardware failure.

> I'm desperate.  IBM wants to reformat my hard disk to see if that
> eliminates the problem---some solution!  Any suggestions, alternate
> theories, etc?  Thanks a million in advance.

You mean you tried to repartition without making a backup?

If it's a BIOS problem, you should be able to retrieve the data on
the drive - buy one of those 2.5" IDE adapters and plug the drive
into a desktop machine.  Make a backup, then reformat and return it
to your 701.

If the drive is dead, there's not much you can do.
--
John H. Kim          "Just try telling the IRS you don't feel like
jokim@mit.edu        'contributing' this year come April." -- Bob Dole
jokim@tuna.mit.edu   on Bill Clinton's avoidance of the word 'taxes'