Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:07:44 +0100 From: Philip Nienhuis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [LIB] When EZ-Drive is a >must< for W98 * W2K installations
Matt Hanson wrote: > > Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 02:24:48 -0800 (PST) > From: Matt Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: [LIB] When EZ-Drive is a >must< for W98 * W2K installations > > After a several approaches at resolving the problem of W98 on C: >8GB not > seeing files & folders properly on a >8GB G: partition without EZ-Drive, > I'm becoming more and more convinced that with some systems, drive overlay > may in fact be necessary. In my case, I'm still guessing that it may be > due to the extremely large numbers of files & folders, and long filenames > involved in my backed up data that the FAT32 file system has to deal with. > > Short Story: > ----------------- > > * Re-installing Windows 98 to the 1st primary partition did not resolve the > issue. > * Creating a new G: logical partition >8GB in Windows 2000's Disk > Management and restoring ~19,000 files & ~3600 folders from backup did not > resolve the issue. > > Long story: > ----------------- > > Note: No drive overlay was present through all of these tests. > > Re-installing Windows 98: > > * Booted 110 from FDD, and reformatted primary C: partition as FAT32 > * Ran E:\Win98\Setup.exe to install fresh copy of Windows 98 > * Ran Windows 98's Scandisk on >8GB G: partition. > * All errors found previously were still present. > > Deleting G: partition and creating a new one in Windows 2000 Disk > Management: > > * W2K balked at deleting the partition saying it was in use by some > program. Though I had none running Does your Win2K have a virus perhaps? (far out suggestion but who knows...) > * Put the HDD in desktop and booted from FDD > * Ran Ranish part.exe and deleted the G: partition > * Put the drive back in 110 and created a new G: partition with W2K Disk > Management > * Booted 110 from FDD and ran part.exe to confirm logical partition G: type > 0c Was it 0c already or did you have to change it from 0B? > * Rebooted 110 to W2K, and created folder tree for one of the files/folders > with a pre-existing problem: What operating system did you use to format the partition? Win2K or Win98? I'd prefer Win2K. > G:\My Downloads\File Management\Virtual CD Drive\DAEMON Tools 3.47\ > * Copied file daemon347.exe to the folder created > * Rebooted into W98 and ran Scandisk on G: > * Scandisk reported no problems at that point. Right. This simply proves that my suggestions of some posts ago work. But you stil have problems. Let's see. > * Put the HDD in desktop as slave > * Booted the system and copied all previously backed up data from G: back > onto G: How? What OS does your desktop run? > * Put HDD back in 110 and booted W98 > * Ran Scandisk which found seemingly un-ending problems with files and > folders. A suggestion: - Perhaps your G:-partition has bad blocks? - You might try to make G: a partition on a different location than the previous one, by making a small partition before it and optionally after it, and then making a somewhat smaller G:-partition. I remember that Format doesn't wipe out all info on disk. And possible bad blocks in the FAT tables may be avoided this way. > At that point I could use Windows Explorer to look at G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop > and found about 10% of the folders had corrupted names displayed with > program characters. > > * Booted to W2K, and both chkdsk and Windows Explorer there saw no problem > files or folders in G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop > * Deleted the entire G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop folder as well as 5-6 other files > W98's Scandisk had found problems with > * Rebooted W98 and ran Scandisk which found no problems. > * Booted W2K again > * Connected 110 to desktop and copied over the G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop folders > and files from backup via ethernet connection > * Rebooting 110 into W98, I could immediately see about 70% of the files > and folders in G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop were corrupted I wouldn't trust the backup, or the ethernet connection. > New approach > --------------------- > > While I was using Ranish Partition Manager, I noticed that the full > extended partition was listed as: > > Type 0f: 'VFAT Extended LBA" > > But each individual portion of the extended partition that contained type > 0b <8GB and one 0c >8GB was designated: > > Type 05: 'Extended" That may be related to the way the EMB chain is made up. > * So I decided to change the portion of the extended partition area where > the 0c G: lives from 05 to a type 0f, and repeat most everything up to this > point. But in the long run, the results were the same. > * But during this test process, I copied over files bit by bit. I started > by just copying over the folder that had been seeing the largest numbers of > errors: G:\My MP3s\Rock-Pop So I copied that and nothing else. > * Scandisk in W98 on the 110 found no problems > * Back in the desktop I copied over all files from \My MP3s and \My > Downloads > * Scandisk from W98 in the 110 only found one MP3 folder problem at \My > MP3s\Classical Instrumental\E. Power Biggs... and 2 problems in \My > Downloads I'd seen before. > * Rebooted 110 to W2K and deleted the files & folders W98's Scandisk had > found problems with > * Rebooted top W98 and ran Scandisk to confirm it found no errors on G: > * Put HDD in desktop and copied all remaining backed up data to G: (J: on > desktop) > * With the drive back in the 110, and W98 booted, I found the file system > had really gone nuts. Scandisk found file after file from folders on one > branch of the directory tree cross-linked with files on other branches of > the tree. > > At that point I gave up... installed EZ-Drive again... ran Scandisk from > W98, and it found no errors at all. Because EZ-drive shifts all tracks one up (to hide itself), this might point to what I suggested above: shift the G:-partition a little bit and see if that helps. Perhaps you've got bad blocks or insufficiently formated blocks after all. Other than that: I have to give up too. A practical point of view would be: if it works for you, be happy with it. Still I fail to believe that EZ-drive is needed. IIRC the whole EZ-drive avoidance fandango was started because of other problems involved with EZ-drive. > Since MS-DOS wasn't able to see the G: drive from the DOS prompt with the > area of the extended partition it was sitting on set to 0f, I put the HDD Which is quite strange. > back in the desktop (actually >before< installing EZB) and reset it to 05. Did MS-DOS see it then? I wouldn't expect that, rather the other way round. > Here's one last interesting observation that shows how confused the FAT32 > was, and how W98 saw the same data on G differently than W2K did. Early one > after the 1st attempt to re-install W98, create a new 0c G:, and restore > the data from backup I saw this: > > * W2K reported seeing 42 objects in the \My MP3s\\Rock-Pop folder. All > were folders. > * W98 reported the same 44 objects. 42 were the same folders W2K saw. But > W98 also saw one hidden folder with a corrupted name, and one hidden file > with a corrupted name. > > Just what's going on with W98 and W2K reporting contents of the same FAT32 > file system differently is a puzzlement. To me too. Look, I've got no EZ-drive or similar disk manager on a 60 GB hard drive; beyond 8 GB are two FAT32 partitions of 10 GB/25,000+ files and 15 GB / 30,000+ files. Never had any problems with those. My extended partition = type 05, both FAT32 partitions are 0C. DOS can't see both FAT32 partitons unless I change the extended partition type to 0F. 0F or 05 doesn't make any difference to Windows (all versions) but the in case of 0F OS/2 Warp can't see the extended partition. I'm puzzled too, Philip
