To all present
Thanks to your kind words and advice, I have the data. Indeed, sincerest
thanks to all here who have attempted to help me in this endeavour. I know I
have been bouncing about like a raving lunatic for the past two days but
this place was my only hope. I had spent the last week struggling with this
problem.
Perhaps this message can conclude this thread.
If you feel like being amused by the trials and calamities of others then
read on. Otherwise, thanks again for all your help.
I have to admit that it's been a bumpy road the last few hours. I had to
check the net for instructions about the master/slave relationship (jumper
settings). I havn't done this since the early 1990s. I then got cold feet.
Suppose there actually is a nasty beastie virus on that disk. So I rummaged
and brought out an old Mitsubishi (Apricot) computer. Now I have the lids
off three machines. I connect up the 40GB sick drive as the slave to the old
machine. I decide to boot from a floppy in case I have the jumpers back to
front. All goes well, burp.... error! configuration error. It's okay it's
just found the new drive. Save new settings and exit. System boots up from
floppy. C: exists and is okay (Win 98SE on board). D: exists and is okay
(SickME on board).
I create a directory on the old drive and XCOPY D:\MYDOCU~1\*.* /S
The data starts whizzing past on the screen. I think I'm brill and go and
make a coffee. Come back and take a directory listing on the old drive. The
data is there. Happy days. Curiousity got the better of me when I was having
coffee. I have to find out whether there is a virus on board. Stick F-Prot
into the CD drive and scan drive D:. The machine is a Pentium I so it goes
chug, chug, chug. F-Prot reports nothing. After about 5 minutes I get board
and stop F-Prot.
Okay, methinks. Boot old computer from it's own hard disk. I disconnect the
40GB slave and remove floppy. Machine boots up (have to save new settings
again). All is well. Open File Manager, right click C: click properties. A
2GB drive with Free Space 1.3GB (Aaaargh, where did the data go - panic -
panic). Close file manager, look at desktop. Panic over, it's a minimal 98SE
install and Microsoft Office is not on the machine. There is only
Wordperfect 6.1 Win and Dataease 5.13 Win. Go get a CDR and stick it in the
machine. Where's Nero??? Oh no, the CD drive is one of the early read-only
contraptions. I could now scream, but I check round the back of the old
machine. It's okay, there are USB ports. Damn it, they will be USB 1.1. I
will have to load drivers for the flash drive because the machine is 98SE.
Is it worth messing around on this old machine? I have the data, but I still
have no idea if it's okay. Office isn't there so I can't open any of the
Word or Excel documents.
Okay, calm down. Just take the sick disk to my own machine and repeat the
process. Eventually, I do get the data (I burn 2 complete copies to 2
different CDRs and will keep the folder on my own machine for a while, just
in case). Anything I have opened seems okay. I do a bit of rummaging around
the sick disk. I notice there's a couple of .ISU files so I decide to delete
them as a read/write test. Worked fine. Disk Free space seemed to match the
deletions.
Now what do I do. I can't just stick the sick disk back in the faulty
machine. I go rummaging again and find a 320MB Panasonic hard disk. I think
it must now be a dud but that won't matter. I connect it to the sick machine
and decide to boot from a floppy (hard disk squeals then a configuration
error .... so do I save settings and exit?). I decide to check through
every aspect of the CMOS. Some of it contains high ASCII characters but I
bumble through it, guessing to my best ability. Machine boots from floppy.
C: is there and contains DOS 6.2. Okay, I allow the machine to boot itself.
The old hard drive actually still worked. Sure enough a little DOS batch
file menu appears. Jeeze, you wouldn't believe how fast WordPerfect 5.1 for
DOS runs on a Pentium III. It's instantaneous.
Okay, I screw the sick disk back into it's place in the sick machine. Oh
buggeration. I've forgotten to reset the jumpers. I take it back out and
then put it back in again. I decide to boot from a floppy and FDISK it.
Configuration does not produce an error it just reports that things have
changed. So I'm at the command line and I type FDISK but...... I can't do
it.
I'm in two minds whether I should just do a SYS C: from a ME boot disk or
FDISK the hard drive.
There was no issue with the BIOS, maybe not even the CMOS. I assume
that even if he tries your excellent suggestion, there may still be a problem
with the disk. At first the machine was running the copying software to burn
to CDR. Then, conjecture may have gotten the better of him.
I'm now of the opinion that there was a problem in the CMOS (the high ASCII
characters are an indicator of that). To be quite honest, I could not swear
that it was caused by Norton, though I firmly believe that it was.
Booting to floppy means the BIOS is likely okay (but may be set to
default settings in CMOS (losing a HD maybe?)). A CMOS battery
problem may have sent him hunting wild geese, who knows.
I think the battery is okay (not sure though). Even though F-Prot reports no
virus, I know there is weird code in the MBR, especially Sector 2. I will
not boot this machine from the hard disk.
My decision now is simply whether to FDISK and reload ME, Office and
internet software, or SYS C: and manually delete references and remaining
folders belonging to Norton. You might find this odd, I would have loved to
FDISK this machine just a few hours ago. However, there was no way I was
gonna track down where email data is, etc. It's hard enough to do when you
can open the programs and find from within them where the data and settings
information is kept.
Ah well.... It's 2.30am. There are bits of three machines scattered about
the place; screws and screwdrivers, etc. I'm going to bed. I'll sleep on
this and clean up in the morning.
Thanks to all here.
Clarence (Lancy) Howard
(e-mail address removed) (remove one of the 7s)
