Re: Parted 1.2.13

[Jeffrey Froman]

Hello Andrew,

 

So, back to diagnosing your problem.  Can you run:
C:\> chkdsk

And send all the numbers to me?

 

Chkdsk tells me:

11,778,480 kilobytes total disk space

10,227,224 (10,214,939) kilobytes free

8192 bytes in each allocation unit

1,471,810 total allocation units

1,278,403  (1,276,867) available allocation units

651,264 total bytes memory

611, 056 bytes free

*numbers in parenthesis are scandisk's, where it disagreed slightly with chkdsk.

 

  Also, can you send the BIOS
geometry (go into your BIOS, usually by hitting DEL when you
turn your computer on).  The BIOS geometry is a triple of numbers,
called "Cylinders, Sectors, Heads".  My hard disk's geometry is
768/255/63.

 

Unfortunately, my skeletal phoenix BIOS don't tell me squat about my hard drive geometry. Partboot reads it as CHS=1559/240/63, and later when I run the parted command, warns me that my "operating system believes the drive's geometry" is the same. The less-than-confidence-inspiring tech I spoke to at Dell assures me that 16,383/16/63 are the numbers I'm looking for. My HD is a fujitsu MHK2120AT; tech specs can be read at http://www.fcpa.com/product/prd_product_frame.html.

Another thing I'd like is:
(1) get a Parted boot disk (you're using this already) and another
DOS formatted disk
(2) boot off the Parted boot disk
(3) remove the Parted boot disk, and insert the DOS formatted
disk.
(4) when it boots up, type:

# mount /dev/fd0 /mnt

This command prompted me to "specify file system type"

# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/mnt/start.img

I bravely went ahead and entered this command anyway; parted answered: invalid number: /dev/hda1

# umount /mnt
Never got to this one.;)

(6) somehow get the start.img file from the floppy disk to me.
Email is a bad idea.  Could you put it on your web site, or
something?

I don't have a web site currently going, but I do "own" some space somewhere--if I can get the image written to floppy I'll try to post it and I'll send you the URL. I would also be happy to mail it to you, or engage in any other form of direct file transfer that you can orchestrate.

 

Thanks,

Jeffrey