Jon wrote:- <<Not completely true. Many BIOS's attempt to read the partition table and the boot sector from the boot partition during the self-test, and will hang there for a long time if they can't find it. I guess it is a stupid timeout waiting for the drive to come on line. 10 seconds would be reasonable, but many BIOS wait for 5 - 20 minutes in this condition. I usually just wait it out, but if I am going to be powering off and on a few times before loading software, then I will format the first partition so I only have to experience the long wait the very first time.
When you let the long timeout finally run out, you get a message "no boot sector found" or similar unless there is a bootable floppy or CD enabled in the BIOS boot list ahead of the hard drive and in the drive.>> That was really my intention with the suggestion I made - boot from a utility floppy and partition the hard drive so that it won't wait around looking for partitions - plus, you at least have the reassurance that you are doing something positive!! We know from Jim's original post that the hard drive was working OK in that computer before he scrubbed it with DBan, so the problem is not to do with hardware compatibility, BIOS etc. etc. - its simply that all the partitions and maybe the boot sector have been nuked... Ian ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stay on top of everything new and different, both inside and around Java (TM) technology - register by April 22, and save $200 on the JavaOne (SM) conference, June 2-5, 2009, San Francisco. 300 plus technical and hands-on sessions. Register today. Use priority code J9JMT32. http://p.sf.net/sfu/p _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
