Clint Sharp wrote:

In message , Eeyore
writes
I've never previously 'lost' or needed to 're-install' an installation of
Windows you see. Short of total mechanical/electrical failure I'd like to
maintain that record.
Get a copy of Spinrite. It works for errors like the one you have. There
are other tools which are for filesystem corruption and lost
files/partitions but it sounds like you have something a little 'lower
level' than that.


Graham




The problem with that idea is that you can't get to that lower level any
more. That door closed with the introduction of IDE / ATA drives many
years ago.

--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.Â*Â*
--Schiller

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:49:05 -0400, "Michael Kennedy"
wrote:


"Clint Sharp" wrote in message
...
In message , Franc Zabkar
writes
I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.
Umm, actually, XP has command.com as well.

--
Clint Sharp

Oddly cmd.exe and command.com behave slightly differently under xp, but
they both do the same thing.

There's a commands.exe (in c:\HP\BIN) on this Vista spit machine
that seems to be similar similar (if not identical) to cmd.exe.

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
One more thing that they belatedly cloned from DRDos / NovellDOS.
--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.Â*Â*
--Schiller

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:56:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

In Win9x you can enable command line history by typing "doskey".

- Franc Zabkar
Actually that was/is a DOS "TSR". A separate program provided by others.
--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.Â*Â*
--Schiller

Spurious Response wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 22:22:09 -0500, msg wrote:

Spurious Response wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:56:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
wrote:


so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.



Command.com is NOT "stripped". It has never had a history function
without running a TSR to manage it. That would have been (not anymore)
DOSKey.

Of course you are presuming MS-DOS; DR-DOS has had history without needing
a driver or TSR from the beginning and IIRC, the 4DOS command interpreter
did/does as well.

Regards,

Michael

DRDOS was a DOS replacement OS. Yes, it had history function.

4DOS' command processor was not called "command.com".
Yes, it had better functionality and speed in a very similar memory and disk
footprints.
--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.Â*Â*
--Schiller

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 12:23:02 +0100, Eeyore
put finger to keyboard and
composed:



Franc Zabkar wrote:

Eeyore put finger to keyboard and composed:

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic
redundancy error'.

I don't use Windows XP, but I know that its command interpreter is
actually cmd.exe.

What's this then ?

Type of file: MS-DOS Application
Description: command
Location: C:\WINDOWS\system32
Size: 49.4 KB (50,620 bytes)


Graham

As I said, I'm basically ignorant of XP, and what little I know about
it I learnt from watching alt.msdos.batch, and by working
[reluctantly] on friends' machines.

In any case other XP users have suggested that you would be better off
using cmd.exe. In fact, if I were to include just one feature of XP in
Win98SE, it would be XP's extensions to batch language.

- Franc Zabkar
You can get that. Do some re-search.
--
JosephKK
Gegen dummheit kampfen die Gotter Selbst, vergebens.Â*Â*
--Schiller

joseph2k wrote:
Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:56:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
In Win9x you can enable command line history by typing "doskey".

- Franc Zabkar
Actually that was/is a DOS "TSR". A separate program provided by others.
DOSKEY was supplied by Microsoft.

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 15:27:12 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:



bz wrote:

Eeyore wrote
"Kevin G. Rhoads" wrote:

go to grc.com and buy SpinRite - well worth the money

Strongly seconded.

It's hardly worth $89 to resuscitate an old 20GB drive.

Depends on the data on it.

Nothing of any value I haven't already got a copy of.

I'm interested in doing it for the challenge mainly.

Graham


There is a lot of challenging fun he

http://pcwin.com/software/Disk_Secto...or/index-1.htm

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:11:46 -0700, Andy Cuffe wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:07:56 -0700, Andy Cuffe
wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

Try IBM's drive fitness test.

I forgot to mention that IBM is now Hitachi Global Storage (hgst.com).
Andy Cuffe




Wrong. IBM is IBM. Hitachi is Hitachi. IBM's disk drive
manufacturing arm was bought by Hitachi Global Storage, the HD
manufacturing arm of Hitachi.

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 04:06:29 GMT, joseph2k
wrote:

Clint Sharp wrote:

In message , Eeyore
writes
I've never previously 'lost' or needed to 're-install' an installation of
Windows you see. Short of total mechanical/electrical failure I'd like to
maintain that record.
Get a copy of Spinrite. It works for errors like the one you have. There
are other tools which are for filesystem corruption and lost
files/partitions but it sounds like you have something a little 'lower
level' than that.


Graham




The problem with that idea is that you can't get to that lower level any
more. That door closed with the introduction of IDE / ATA drives many
years ago.


Even farther back ESDI drives (some) had a small area of one platter
reserved for a CP/M OS which "booted up" on the drives controller cards.
THEN, the system could have access to the drive through an ESDI
controller.

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 04:24:45 GMT, joseph2k
wrote:

Franc Zabkar wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 09:56:00 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
put finger to keyboard and
composed:

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

In Win9x you can enable command line history by typing "doskey".

- Franc Zabkar
Actually that was/is a DOS "TSR". A separate program provided by others.

TSR yes. Provided by others... no. It was included BY Microsoft, and
was their product.

Spurious Response wrote:

joseph2k wrote:
Franc Zabkar wrote:
Spehro Pefhany put finger to keyboard and composed:

Note that cmd.exe (and my commands.exe) allow you to use the up-arrow
key (or F3) to copy the previous command (as well as other things) so
it's a lot more pleasant to use than the stripped command.com.


In Win9x you can enable command line history by typing "doskey".

Actually that was/is a DOS "TSR". A separate program provided by others.

TSR yes. Provided by others... no. It was included BY Microsoft, and
was their product.

There were 3rd party equivalents that predated doskey.

Graham

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 04:28:49 GMT, joseph2k
put finger to keyboard and composed:

In any case other XP users have suggested that you would be better off
using cmd.exe. In fact, if I were to include just one feature of XP in
Win98SE, it would be XP's extensions to batch language.

- Franc Zabkar

You can get that. Do some re-search.

If you mean 4DOS, then I've been aware of this command.com replacement
long before it became freeware. In any case I didn't say I was looking
for this extra functionality, I just said that it would be one of the
few features of XP that I would add to W98.

- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 00:28:47 -0700, Spurious Response
wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:11:46 -0700, Andy Cuffe wrote:

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:07:56 -0700, Andy Cuffe
wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 00:02:02 +0100, Eeyore
wrote:

Try IBM's drive fitness test.

I forgot to mention that IBM is now Hitachi Global Storage (hgst.com).
Andy Cuffe




Wrong. IBM is IBM. Hitachi is Hitachi. IBM's disk drive
manufacturing arm was bought by Hitachi Global Storage, the HD
manufacturing arm of Hitachi.

I meant IBM hard drives.
Andy Cuffe

"Meat Plow" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 19 Jul 2007 03:02:40 +0100, Eeyore wrote:



Meat Plow wrote:

Eeyore wrote:
Meat Plow wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
Meat Plow wrote:
Eeyore wrote:
martin griffith wrote:

try a linux cd-live boot disk

I did that a while back.

Neither Ubuntu or Xubuntu would work. I'm very unimpressed.

Doesn't surprise me especially if it was formatted in NTFS.

It wasn't. FAT32. Call me a 'stick in the mud' if you like but I
like stuff I
know works.

Well the linux kernel has no problems mounting FAT partitions. I use
my
FAT formatted SD camera card here in Kubuntu all the time. And I
prefer
NTFS over FAT any day

My reason for sticking with FAT was that I wanted W98 compatability.


Ah Win98, that's fair. Some like the simplicity of it. I use linux for
internet and XP for video/audio production.

I'm keen to explore Linux but my results to date haven't been very
promising. It seems
to me that the much-touted 'live' CDs require a fairly modern PC to run.
The trouble
is that they give no indication of whether or not the PC can support it
or not.

I will keep trying though. I have another 'box' in mind.



I run Kubuntu Edgy on an AMD Athalon 64 desktop and an Asus widescreen
laptop (Intel Centrino). Edgy installed with no intervention on my part
on the laptop. I had to manually switch the X window source on the AMD box
to support the embedded NVidia graphics hardware's acceleration. Funny
thing is that I had all kinds of trouble reinstalling XP on this AMD 64
because it's an E Machines made by Gateway and the proper chipset drivers
were buried deep on the web site of the motherboard manufacturer (MSI).


Hey Meat _ I never had you figured as a Mr Beardy with open toed sandals ...
!!

Arfa

so, wheres your backup?

"Eeyore" wrote in message
...
Never seen this before.

A HDD of mine (IBM Deskstar 20GB IC35L020AVER07-0) 'died' when I restarted
Windows (XP btw FWIW). Windows shut down OK seemingly but wouldn't
restart.

It totally 'locked up' the PC with no error message. Never seen anything
quite
like that before so it took me a little while to pinpoint it. The BIOS
found the
drive OK btw.

Anyway, I got things sorted and then re-attached it as a secondary drive.

Trying to look at it, Windows Explorer 'froze' for a bit but it did load a
drive
icon eventually. However Windows Explorer was of no further help.

I then used XP's command.com and got the cryptic message 'cyclic
redundancy
error'.

Any ideas what's up ? Is the drive destined for silicon hell or is it
recoverable ? I'm wondering if the system area's data's been trashed for
example.

Graham

HapticZ wrote:

so, wheres your backup?

In the PC.

Graham