Windows 98 issue - reads hard drive wrong

[Barry Watzman]

I have a laptop with dual boot Win98SE on C: and XP on D:.

Drives D:, E:, F: and G: are all logical drives within an extended
partition. All are FAT32. The drive is 100 gigabytes. It's a brand
new drive that I installed because the old drive developed the problem
described below, and I had been planning to change the drive anyway, but
now the problem exists on the new drive also. However, the OS was moved
from the old drive to the new drive (Drive Image) rather than being
reinstalled from scratch (which would be a major job on this laptop,
there are a LOT of installed programs). Also, the fact that it's dual
boot would complicate a reinstallation of Windows 98SE, which is on C:.

Somehow, Windows 98SE (which is fully updated) has become corrupted in
such a way that it does not properly see the extended DOS partition.
The drives are totally screwed up, I get reports that the two copies of
the FAT don't match, the drive labels have unprintable characters in
them, scandisk goes nuts on those drives, etc. The problem is minimal
on D: and gets worse the further into the extended DOS partition that
you get. G: isn't even accessible.

The problem has been determined to be in Windows 98's code. The drive
hardware is fine, and based on what I can see, the structure is ok; XP
(which is itself in one of the partitions of the DOS extended partition)
sees everything as fine and, very interestingly, if I boot Windows 98 to
a DOS prompt (boot to true DOS, not a DOS window within 98), MS-DOS sees
everything as fine. I can run diagnostics from DOS and everthing is
cool. If I run those same diagnostics from Windows 98SE, the drive is a
mess.

Question: Apparently an actual code component of Windows 98SE has
become corrupted in a way that is impacting it's ability to properly see
the partitions. Is there any reasonable way to fix this without a
reinstallation? Is there a particular file that is likely to be the
culprit?

Would running SFC replace any corrupted files? If so, what does that do
to the various updates that have been installed since 98 itself was
installed?

Thanks

 

[Malke]

I have a laptop with dual boot Win98SE on C: and XP on D:.

Drives D:, E:, F: and G: are all logical drives within an extended
partition. All are FAT32. The drive is 100 gigabytes. It's a brand
new drive that I installed because the old drive developed the problem
described below, and I had been planning to change the drive anyway,
but
now the problem exists on the new drive also. However, the OS was
moved from the old drive to the new drive (Drive Image) rather than
being reinstalled from scratch (which would be a major job on this
laptop,
there are a LOT of installed programs). Also, the fact that it's dual
boot would complicate a reinstallation of Windows 98SE, which is on
C:.

Somehow, Windows 98SE (which is fully updated) has become corrupted in
such a way that it does not properly see the extended DOS partition.
The drives are totally screwed up, I get reports that the two copies
of the FAT don't match, the drive labels have unprintable characters
in
them, scandisk goes nuts on those drives, etc. The problem is minimal
on D: and gets worse the further into the extended DOS partition that
you get. G: isn't even accessible.

The problem has been determined to be in Windows 98's code. The drive
hardware is fine, and based on what I can see, the structure is ok; XP
(which is itself in one of the partitions of the DOS extended
partition) sees everything as fine and, very interestingly, if I boot
Windows 98 to a DOS prompt (boot to true DOS, not a DOS window within
98), MS-DOS sees
everything as fine. I can run diagnostics from DOS and everthing is
cool. If I run those same diagnostics from Windows 98SE, the drive is
a mess.

Question: Apparently an actual code component of Windows 98SE has
become corrupted in a way that is impacting it's ability to properly
see
the partitions. Is there any reasonable way to fix this without a
reinstallation? Is there a particular file that is likely to be the
culprit?

Would running SFC replace any corrupted files? If so, what does that
do to the various updates that have been installed since 98 itself was
installed?

Thanks

Thank you for the very lucid and detailed post. The reason the new drive
has the problem is because you imaged the old drive and the issues you
had with Win98 came too. Unfortunately, the only thing you can really
do with Win98 at this point is a new clean install. You can try running
SFC in Win98, but I don't hold out much hope for success. Copy XP's
boot files to a floppy first, clean install Win98, and then put XP's
boot files back.

Malke

 

[Barry Watzman]

I perfectly understand that imaging the old drive imaged any problems,
but now I'm not as sure about the underlying nature of the situation. I
had an image from October of 2003, when there were no problems (as far
as I know ... this system dates back to December, 2002), I restored it,
and it has the same problems.

I did run SFC and it found one file that it identified as corrupted, but
it had nothing to do with, and did not seem to impact, this issue.

???

 

[Malke]

I perfectly understand that imaging the old drive imaged any problems,
but now I'm not as sure about the underlying nature of the situation.
I had an image from October of 2003, when there were no problems (as
far as I know ... this system dates back to December, 2002), I
restored it, and it has the same problems.

I did run SFC and it found one file that it identified as corrupted,
but it had nothing to do with, and did not seem to impact, this issue.

Then test the other hardware in your computer. Also make sure you are
using the correct type of ribbon cable for your new hard drive and
didn't just use the old one. I'd start hardware testing with the RAM. I
use Memtest86+ from www.memtest.org. Post back if you need more help in
doing hardware troubleshooting.

Malke

 

[Barry Watzman]

The situation is much more complex and perplexing than I previously
understood.

First, the computer is a Toshiba 1415 laptop, and it's not new, I've
been using it for 3 years.

Windows 98SE installed on this laptop is seeing the logical drives
within the extended DOS partition (in fact the extended DOS partition
itself, apparently) as corrupt.

However, they are not corrupt, there is nothing wrong with the structure
of the drive. It's seen as perfectly fine by XP (on the same computer,
dual boot) and, get this, by MS-DOS on the same computer (From 98:
"Shut down", "Restart in MS-DOS mode"). And installing the drive
(either of them, the original 60 gig drive or the 100 gig drive that I
installed yesterday) on another computer also shows the drive integrity
to be intact, EVEN UNDER 98SE ON THE OTHER COMPUTER.

So, this morning, I wiped the hard drive, recreated the drive structure
using the May, 2000 release of FDISK, and reinstalled Windows 98SE on
the machine in C:, totally fresh. AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE EXTENDED
DOS PARTITION AND LOGICAL DRIVES IS STILL THERE FROM WINDOWS 98SE.
But, again, get this, MS-DOS sees the drive and all partitions just
fine. [XP, at this point, no longer exists, since everything was wiped
and created fresh, from scratch, all partitions other than C: are
empty.] The partition structure is:

Primary Partition
C:, 8 gigs

Logical Drives in extended DOS partition:
D:, 10 gigs (had and will have XP dual boot)
E:, 32 gigs
F:, 32 gigs
G:, 10 gigs

All 5 partitions are FAT 32

What is going on here? It's not a hardware problem (both MS-DOS and XP
see everything fine on this machine), it's not a drive problem (happens
on 2 different drives, but doesn't happen on MS-DOS or XP, or even on
98SE when the drive is installed in a different computer). And it's not
a new comptuer, and this problem just started happening recently.

[The laptop has the latest bios from 2003]

 

[Malke]

The situation is much more complex and perplexing than I previously
understood.

First, the computer is a Toshiba 1415 laptop, and it's not new, I've
been using it for 3 years.

Windows 98SE installed on this laptop is seeing the logical drives
within the extended DOS partition (in fact the extended DOS partition
itself, apparently) as corrupt.

However, they are not corrupt, there is nothing wrong with the
structure
of the drive. It's seen as perfectly fine by XP (on the same
computer, dual boot) and, get this, by MS-DOS on the same computer
(From 98:
"Shut down", "Restart in MS-DOS mode"). And installing the drive
(either of them, the original 60 gig drive or the 100 gig drive that I
installed yesterday) on another computer also shows the drive
integrity to be intact, EVEN UNDER 98SE ON THE OTHER COMPUTER.

So, this morning, I wiped the hard drive, recreated the drive
structure using the May, 2000 release of FDISK, and reinstalled
Windows 98SE on
the machine in C:, totally fresh. AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE EXTENDED
DOS PARTITION AND LOGICAL DRIVES IS STILL THERE FROM WINDOWS 98SE.
But, again, get this, MS-DOS sees the drive and all partitions just
fine. [XP, at this point, no longer exists, since everything was
wiped and created fresh, from scratch, all partitions other than C:
are
empty.] The partition structure is:

Primary Partition
C:, 8 gigs

Logical Drives in extended DOS partition:
D:, 10 gigs (had and will have XP dual boot)
E:, 32 gigs
F:, 32 gigs
G:, 10 gigs

All 5 partitions are FAT 32

What is going on here? It's not a hardware problem (both MS-DOS and
XP see everything fine on this machine), it's not a drive problem
(happens on 2 different drives, but doesn't happen on MS-DOS or XP, or
even on
98SE when the drive is installed in a different computer). And it's
not a new comptuer, and this problem just started happening recently.

[The laptop has the latest bios from 2003]

The only thing I can think of is that the Toshiba's motherboard is
going. Since you know the drive and os was fine in another machine,
what else is left?

Malke

 

[Barry Watzman]

Re: "The only thing I can think of is that the Toshiba's motherboard is
going. Since you know the drive and os was fine in another machine,
what else is left?"

There is no indication of that, and the fact that MS-DOS and XP work ON
THAT COMPUTER suggest it's not a hardware problem.

A LOT of screwing around has gotten me to the point where 98 sees the
partitions ok but still insists that the extended dos partition (within
which the partitions reside) is corrupt. But I don't "trust" the
integrity of this.

I need some better analytical software, not to "fix" anything but to
analyze what's going on and tell me in some specific detail. All that I
have now is chkdsk, scandisk (both DOS and Windows versions) and Norton
Disk Doctor. Any recommendations? I just don't see how DOS and XP
could see the disk as fine when a fresh install of 98 sees it so screwed
up. Same drive, same partitions on the same Toshiba laptop.

Barry Watzman wrote:

The situation is much more complex and perplexing than I previously
understood.

First, the computer is a Toshiba 1415 laptop, and it's not new, I've
been using it for 3 years.

Windows 98SE installed on this laptop is seeing the logical drives
within the extended DOS partition (in fact the extended DOS partition
itself, apparently) as corrupt.

However, they are not corrupt, there is nothing wrong with the
structure
of the drive. It's seen as perfectly fine by XP (on the same
computer, dual boot) and, get this, by MS-DOS on the same computer
(From 98:
"Shut down", "Restart in MS-DOS mode"). And installing the drive
(either of them, the original 60 gig drive or the 100 gig drive that I
installed yesterday) on another computer also shows the drive
integrity to be intact, EVEN UNDER 98SE ON THE OTHER COMPUTER.

So, this morning, I wiped the hard drive, recreated the drive
structure using the May, 2000 release of FDISK, and reinstalled
Windows 98SE on
the machine in C:, totally fresh. AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE EXTENDED
DOS PARTITION AND LOGICAL DRIVES IS STILL THERE FROM WINDOWS 98SE.
But, again, get this, MS-DOS sees the drive and all partitions just
fine. [XP, at this point, no longer exists, since everything was
wiped and created fresh, from scratch, all partitions other than C:
are
empty.] The partition structure is:

Primary Partition
C:, 8 gigs

Logical Drives in extended DOS partition:
D:, 10 gigs (had and will have XP dual boot)
E:, 32 gigs
F:, 32 gigs
G:, 10 gigs

All 5 partitions are FAT 32

What is going on here? It's not a hardware problem (both MS-DOS and
XP see everything fine on this machine), it's not a drive problem
(happens on 2 different drives, but doesn't happen on MS-DOS or XP, or
even on
98SE when the drive is installed in a different computer). And it's
not a new comptuer, and this problem just started happening recently.

[The laptop has the latest bios from 2003]

The only thing I can think of is that the Toshiba's motherboard is
going. Since you know the drive and os was fine in another machine,
what else is left?

Malke

 

[Steve N.]

The situation is much more complex and perplexing than I previously
understood.

First, the computer is a Toshiba 1415 laptop, and it's not new, I've
been using it for 3 years.

Windows 98SE installed on this laptop is seeing the logical drives
within the extended DOS partition (in fact the extended DOS partition
itself, apparently) as corrupt.

However, they are not corrupt, there is nothing wrong with the structure
of the drive. It's seen as perfectly fine by XP (on the same computer,
dual boot) and, get this, by MS-DOS on the same computer (From 98: "Shut
down", "Restart in MS-DOS mode"). And installing the drive (either of
them, the original 60 gig drive or the 100 gig drive that I installed
yesterday) on another computer also shows the drive integrity to be
intact, EVEN UNDER 98SE ON THE OTHER COMPUTER.

So, this morning, I wiped the hard drive, recreated the drive structure
using the May, 2000 release of FDISK, and reinstalled Windows 98SE on
the machine in C:, totally fresh. AND THE CORRUPTION OF THE EXTENDED
DOS PARTITION AND LOGICAL DRIVES IS STILL THERE FROM WINDOWS 98SE. But,
again, get this, MS-DOS sees the drive and all partitions just fine.
[XP, at this point, no longer exists, since everything was wiped and
created fresh, from scratch, all partitions other than C: are empty.]
The partition structure is:

Primary Partition
C:, 8 gigs

Logical Drives in extended DOS partition:
D:, 10 gigs (had and will have XP dual boot)
E:, 32 gigs
F:, 32 gigs
G:, 10 gigs

All 5 partitions are FAT 32

What is going on here? It's not a hardware problem (both MS-DOS and XP
see everything fine on this machine), it's not a drive problem (happens
on 2 different drives, but doesn't happen on MS-DOS or XP, or even on
98SE when the drive is installed in a different computer). And it's not
a new comptuer, and this problem just started happening recently.

[The laptop has the latest bios from 2003]

Sounds like a Win98 chipset driver issue to me.

Steve

 

[Bill Blanton]

A LOT of screwing around has gotten me to the point where 98 sees the partitions ok but still insists that the extended dos
partition (within which the partitions reside) is corrupt. But I don't "trust" the integrity of this.

What is telling you that it's corrupt?

I need some better analytical software, not to "fix" anything but to analyze what's going on and tell me in some specific detail.
All that I have now is chkdsk, scandisk (both DOS and Windows versions) and Norton Disk Doctor. Any recommendations?

Download partinfo, and from a DOS prompt run
partinfo >partinfo.txt
Open partinfo.txt in notepad.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/partinfo.zip


If you want another set of eyes to look at it you can email me the
txt file.


Check that the "type" (FS) of the extended is 0F and not 05, for starters.
Links to the next logical in the chain should still be 05.