On Sun, 21 Mar, Ben Jemmet wrote:
> Hmmm... Well, as I'm typing on a Dell machine right now (Dimension XPS R400,
> Maxtor 10Gb HDD) I can tell you that's wrong... There's no hidden partition -
> the entire drive is one FAT32 partition. There is a file in the root called
> 'ZZ-TOP.EXE' with hidden attributes, also a 'Z.BAT' that would presumable be
> run if the user enters Z at the DOS prompt - this just calls ZZ-TOP. I've not
> run this program yet, in case it does something nasty - however, I've read
> through it and it contains menus with options such as Reinitialise HDD to
> factory state', 'Re-seal EBS' - EBS being Electronic Break The Seal.
Well, you're probably right. My friend probably misunderstood
something when he tried to describe the process of "Reininitialise
HDD to factory state", because this was obviously what he did.
My point was however not really to discuss exactly how he restored
the HD to factory state, but the fact that he felt it necessary to do
so, and that he was given the advice to do so, by the support
division of a large, well-known computer manufacturer.
As a Win95/98 newbie, it would also be interesting to read different
views on *why* Win9x behaves in such a way that reinstall is
necessary every other week, according to some on this list. Could the
user do anything to avoid this and could the manufacturer improve his
program in any way to avoid it?
And, BTW, when you reinstall, don't you lose all personal settings
you have made in the meantime? Are there different re-installs, like
minor, medium and major, the latter perhaps being like what was
described above?
Lars-Einar Jansson
Stockholm, Sweden
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