Re: Dos first drive overwritten?Sorted.

[Declan. Moriarty]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2003 at 06:03:48PM +0100, Declan. Moriarty enlightened us thusly
> I am sure you have come across this before:
> 
> I installed grub - as per linuxfromscratch instructions, in the grub
> shell
> 
> root (hd0,1)
> setup (hd0)
> quit
>        
> It wrote 15 sectors of e2fs on the first (vfat)partition, which now is
> buggered beyond rescue by dos tools. It's a new 40G disk. this is the
> o/p of fsisk -l

> Linux is fine - now. I did have some fun, but sorted it (root should
> never go near a pc _before_ he finishes waking up ;-). I have entries
> for and can boot lfs-3.3 and lfs-5. 
> 
> Please copy me on any replies as I am offlist. Is there a doc, or
> something I can refer to? I did check the FAQ. Why is it writing e2fs
> on a vfat partition?  -- 

The above complaint has been sorted. It took a scary session
with NDD under windows to do it. (Fortunately I had a version of windows
on an old hd that would run here on the same box).

I had 4 vfat partitions loaded (2 from each drive) but windows typically
gave me C: D: E: F: &G:, or 5. A look at the contents told me the first
4 were genuine, with my faulty drive as D: That checked out fine, but
drive G: showed errors which NDD 'fixed' I did go for the undo file ;-).
Anyhow, I wrote a file on G: and it appeared nowhere else :-o. It had
the size of my dodgy drive D: and the contents were unclear (I couldn't
swear where they came from)

I tried sys c: d: (transfer system from one to another) and the box
complained of 'virus like activity' on drive G: I took the plunge, and
told it to go on. After shutting down, dos worked.

"If it ain't broke don't fix it" is the first rule in my business, 
(Electronics hardware repairs) so needless to say, that's what's been
done. I still wonder about that fifth partition.

At no stage did I find myself saying "I wish I had good old lilo back"


        With best Regards,


        Declan Moriarty.