On 5 Nov 2005 at 22:36, A-NO-NE Music wrote: > David W. Fenton / 2005/11/05 / 08:00 PM wrote: > > >Again, I don't see any purpose in reformatting. Just install a fresh > >copy of Windows in a new folder, alongside the old one. > > On my Macs, I like zero-formatting to map out bad sectors. It's just > my habit. But since Win2KJP install CD won't see C: which is NTFS, I > can't install the new Win2KJP next to the old one either.
Well, I don't believe that's necessary on Windows disks. You should be able to run a full disk check by opening Windows Explorer, right clicking on the C: driver, choosing PROPERTIES and then the TOOLS tabl, and then CHECK NOW. Check off both choices and then schedule the job for the next boot. It will run a full check for bad sectors, move all readable data out of them and then mark them bad. This should be just as good as a full reformat. I'd do this before installing the new Windows. And after installation, let the drive defrag overnight (actually, you usually need to defrag about 8 times to get the drive completely defragmented; I don't know why this is -- I tend to do start a defrag and go in the other room to watch TV, then check back periodically and restart a new defrag each time it completes). Then defrag again after you remove the old Windows installation. And running the disk check again at that point wouldn't be a terribly idea. NTFS is pretty good with self-healing though. I've never had problems with NTFS like I had with FAT or FAT32, even though I was much more diligent with disk maintenance under FAT. > >If the NTFS volume doesn't mount, that suggests that you have some > >other boot loader or partition management software on the machine, > >which can definitely mess things up. > > Shoot. Is this what it's about? I have always partitioned with > PQMagic for many, many years. Is this the source of my problem? Is > there any way to remedy this at this point? By the way, I once bought > SystemCommander and used it once for my beloved trusty Win95JP, but it > really broke boot sector to the point unrepeatable. And it's been so > difficult to have multiple bootable Wintel especially before the birth > of NTLoader, which still can screw things up after restore. I am too > used to Mac which can be booted from pretty much anything (.. but > floppy, of course :-) .. What I mean is, if it were Mac here, I would > had booted off a FW drive to format and install Thinkpad's internal > drive without going through any of this frustration. I don't think this is a Windows issue. I think you've got some weird partition management software that has to be loaded to mount the partition, and that's not running when you boot from the CD (since it's part of the MBR of the active partition on the hard drive rather than the CD). These kinds of partition management utilities usually have some way of getting round that, where you can load the drivers from floppy or something. If you can get to the Windows Command Console you should be able to run a program from the floppy disk, but I don't know how to launch the command console from a Windows CD (only from the system boot partition). This ought to be a common scenario so PQMagic (PowerQuest PartionMagic? If it's that, it's a very good product that I use myself, though not the boot manager) ought to provide instructions on how to do what you need to do, and you can then probably wipe the drive entirely, as you prefer. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
