Seriously Technical Question: Unique HDD Problem

[DOS]

I'm a newbie, so forgive me if I'm doing anything unorthodox. By my username you've probably already figured out I like DOS-based things. I'm an especially big fan of old and classic games, operating systems, and computers. So here's the story, which will help set the facts and give you an idea of what I'm doing and why. So, here goes:
Back before Y2K I bought an HP OmniBook 5500CS laptop with a very hard-earned $300.00. It started out with an 11.3" DSTN screen, 700MB hard drive, 100MHz processor, docking station and parallel external floppy. At that point, I didn't know hardly anything about laptops. My first task was to take of Win 98 and put on Win95 (my favorite OS at the time). The first mistake was formatting the hard drive without backing up all the model specific drivers, which, since those drivers are not available from anywhere, permanently rendered my second large-capacity battery and several other features useless. Since then I have been trying to restore and improve upon that laptop. There is easily an additional $1000 invested in it over the years, not counting the weeks on end worth of time and frustration put into it. It
now has a 12.1" TFT, new (internal) keyboard, new 133MHz processor, new (but used) hard drive, new docking station, several new external devices including a 14GB tape drive, new (paid for) programs, and many other things I can't think of right now. This establishes the fact that with all that time and money put into it, I don't want to give up on this one last improvement, which really is the last thing I plan on doing to it.

So, what's this "improvement" and why am I doing it?
My laptop's second hard drive, a 4.1GB (which is only 3.8GB useable because of bad spots), is failing to the point of severe instability and intermittent ability to boot. All of my many many countless hours of gathering, customizing, and organizing is in jeopardy. (I know that sounds a bit ridiculous but if you put those hours end-to-end you'd come up with
several weeks, maybe even a month or so, of solid work - that is, not including sleeping, eating, or breaks, just solid work 24/7 if you string all the hours together) So, after just barely being able to make one last boot on the old drive in normal mode, I defragged and backed-up my hard drive to my 14GB tape drive. I got a brand new 7200 RPM 80GB hard drive and am trying to install it, but have run into a problem. Before I describe the problem, here are some established facts:
-My boot floppy and floppy drive are both in good working order.
-My new hard drive is in good working order.
-The laptop itself is in good working order.
-There are no problems with cables, connections, etc. Communications between all devices are good.
-Windows 98SE was on the old drive and it's the same thing I'm putting on the new one, from the same CD

So here's the situation:
I installed the drive and used my bootable Win98SE floppy. I FDISKed the hard drive 'by the book', and restarted so FDISK changes could take effect. Now, when it gets to the part where it says "Booting from Floppy Disk" again, the floppy drive begins running like normal but at the point where it's supposed to bring up the boot menu, it just continues to run (just plain running, no reading or writing) and everything appears to lock-up (nothing works, not even ctrl+alt+del). That's where the problem is, it won't finish loading from floppy. I need to find out one of two things (or both):
1)Why is it doing that and how can I fix it?
-OR-
2)What can I do to work around it?

Here are some other things I've already tried, along with the results, and things I've discovered while trying to find out more:
*If I take the HDD out and have no HDD in the laptop, it will still boot up using the Win98 boot floppy.
*If I put the old drive back in it will boot with the floppy.
*When I FDISK in the 5500CS, only 8GB of the 76GB available is partitioned, but I expected that. The point of the new drive was to start fresh with a brand new drive and have the speed of a 7200 RPM drive, so the recognizable GB is not very important. I can make additional partitions later.
*I tried FDISKing it in an HP OmniBook 6000 and it does boot the second time (when changes are supposed to take effect).
*When I partition in my 5500CS, it creates a FAT32 8GB partition (I know this from viewing the drive in the 6000)
*When I partition the drive in the 6000, it creates an "unknown" partition of 76GB.
*If I put the drive back in the 5500CS after FDISKing it in the 6000, it will boot with the floppy and can 'see' the 76GB partition. If I delete the "unknown" 76GB partition and replace it with the FAT32 8GB partition, when I reboot for the changes to take effect it does as I first described - it stops loading just before it reaches the menu and gets stuck on the screen with "Booting from Floppy Disk".
*The 5500CS will not allow Windows 98SE setup to run on the formatted 76GB "unknown" partition because it says it's not a FAT32 partition. But, Win98SE will install on that same partition if the drive is in the 6000.
*The BIOS on the 5500CS Recognizes the hard drive but says it has zero MB, no matter what stage I'm at in the formatting process or which laptop it was formatted (or FDIKSed) in.
*It looks to me like it has something to do with the way the partition is being made on the 5500CS, or something that's not being done.
*When I reboot on the 5500CS, I make sure that everything in idle state. (that is, no HDD activity, floppy is idle, etc.)
*There is no difference between a cold or warm boot, the same thing happens if it was FDISKed with the 5500CS.
*I tried FDISKing on the 5500CS to make a FAT32 partition, putting it in the 6000 to finish formatting and install Win98SE, then putting it back in the 5500CS after Windows was installed and operational, but when booting it says "Warning: boot sector 0 has changed" then tries to read from floppy and says "invalid system disk", even if the floppy drive is empty. I tried changing the boot order to HDD only, but get the same message, except the floppy doesn't look for a disk with that boot mode selected. If I have the boot floppy in the floppy drive at this point, when I boot it says "Booting from Floppy Disk" and hangs as described above.
*If I don't FDISK the drive or FDISK it in the 6000 and try to boot on the 5500CS, it says "No operating system installed". I've tried to figure out a way to make it boot to the command prompt using only the hard drive, but haven't been able to figure out how to do it. The boot disk only works in the 5500CS until I FDISK the drive, then it hangs as before.

I may add a few things to this list if I think of them but that's about all I can think of right now. Any help with this situation would be greatly appreciated. And, I really don't mean to be rude or "turn off" anyone, but I would ask that you please read the entire post before asking a question. I used to visit a different computer forum a lot but decided to find another one because they kept asking questions that had already been answered (many times over at that) and I spent most of my time restating the original facts. But, if there's something not here you need to know, ask away and I'll be happy to provide you with any info you need. As I said before, any help would be greatly appreciated. That hard drive cost a pretty penny, and aside from that, all that time over the years spent working on it, all the lost sleep, and all the resources were wasted if I can't get it working again. It's why I've pursued it this far, and it's why I intend to finish.
Thanks again! :happy:
I'll be checking as often as I can.

-DOS

[Idnew]

Wow lot of reading and will have to read it again I'm sure. Boot to the floppy again and this time type fdisk/mbr

[jtdoom]

Hi

I just speedread this, wiil prolly read again and have looked at a few things before I come back online, but for now, a few questions.

question 1, what version of FDISK? (98 has 64 cosmetic limit)
2; is there overlay installed?
3, would be fat 32 for 8Gb, but what version of win95 did you use?

95c has fat32, its DOS can handle fat32 if you converted to 32...

is there a DOS version conflict between the floppies and what is on system hard-disk?

ver will tell...

I never used parallel drives, and much of what you use I only heard about, and I do not even have tons of time on hand for the next seven months... but I am sure there are a few trhings at CTH what have info you might want, and even more sure there are people who know more than I do.

I suggest you read the sticky about setup in 98 forum.
I would even welcome it if you helped improve that thing by telling us about your current setup and how you handled all this in the past, yet I am sure there are things in there you may not have come across elsewhere....

[DOS]

OK, here's how it stands as of now:
-No matter how I do it, if I create a partition with the 5500CS, it absolutely will not finish loading on the second boot (required restart).
-If I create a partition of any size on the 6000, it will load but since the partition is not FAT32, it won't install Win98SE.

So now what I need to know is how to make the 6000 make a FAT32 partition?
Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[jtdoom]

OH, a WARNING

DO NOT RUN FDISK /MBR
this would kill overlay on your system drive (if present, and this is most likely the case), PLUS it would kill other bootstrap related things you might have wittingly put in there.

[jtdoom]

second half of that opener has a few leads for our watsons.

the 6000 probably natively recognised 80Gb, and your 5500 don't.
To limit a 80 Gb to 32 by jumper, is a waste of money (like wasting 27 dollar)
using the drive manufactor disktools to install overlay on it, I never done that from an external floppy, but reckon it can be done.

I see you use 98se all the way.... its fdisk has a COSMETIC limit.
it does what it is told all right, but shows it wrong so most do it wrong, so one gots to DL a fdisk that does show it right so one can more easily do it right.
HDD manufactors usually have a DL with a diskmanager,

Q?
what is the brand/model of the new drive you want t use in there?

remark, best thing was indeed to get a nearly dead drive out before it died.
its backup could be good, and if it did not completely went kaput, you could later on still try to reclaim failed-to-backup files.

btw, I have a comment for one of our helpers.
for DOS commands, I am rusty
CD means Change DIRECTORY
When you are at A:\>_
CD C: don't do you any good

[jtdoom]

when the 5500 bios does not natively recognise the 80 giga for what it is, and its bios setup for drive parameter setup don't allow this either (prolly the case, here), then overlay would get you over the BIOS hurdle.

suppose you BIOS CAN handle this size.
win 98 fdisk would still get that cosmetic thing (par percent division rather
than size is a good working method, in that case), but the disktmaker disktool would have the complete and FAST answer to this.
that fdisk DL is still to be got, tho...

suppose you BIOS CANNOT handle this size.
the disktmaker disktool would be the mort cost effective 5full use of 80 Gb rather than limit to 32Gb)/least time consuming answer to this.

disktools have always been much much faster than fdisk.

[DOS]

Okydoke - first, a little background on me….

*I am indeed a fan of the older comps and OS’s, but have no formal education on them, so I am self-taught on many things, especially pure DOS and related basic processes. That being said, I have a question – How do you overlay?

Next, here’s a few more details and some answers to your Q’s…

The 5:06 PM post:

Question #1 - On FDISK, I downloaded the 64GB limit fix for 98SE FDISK, but it didn’t seem to be able to see any more than it was seeing before.

Question #2 – I do not know if there is an overlay, mainly because I don’t know what one is (pardon my ignorance)

Question #3 – Even though I am not using Win95 at all (the boot disk is also 98SE), the maximum my laptop does seem to recognize is 8GB.

The floppy worked just fine with both previous HDDs and it also works with the new one too, even up until the required restart for FDISK. The floppy continues to operate, I think it is just the computer locking up because ctrl+alt+del does not work at the point when it stops loading. There is nothing on the HDD except what FDISK puts there so there should be no conflict there.

The 5:30 PM post:

“the 6000 probably natively recognized 80Gb, and your 5500 don't” – I agree. The challenge: Get the 5500CS to do as the 6000 does...

The main reason for the purchase of the new drive is:
a)To start with a recently produced (as in not NOS) brand new HDD
b)To have the speed of a 7200 RPM HDD
So, the full capacity of 80GB would be the desired end result, but I can live with the lower capacity of 32GB if it will remedy this problem.

The drive model, it’s specifications, and it’s claim to be compatible with the HP OmniBook 5500CS can be found Here (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=6834710504&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&rd=1).

A note:
This HDD did not come with anything, just the drive in unopened antistatic packaging.

I have retained the old drive, I believe it still useful as a secondary drive, but it can no longer sustain an OS. The complete back-up was done just after a thorough surface scan and defrag.

And yes, "CD C:" will not change drives.

The 5:45 PM post:

The BIOS does ‘see’ the hard drive, but shows it as being zero MB. It still has the original BIOS that came with it BTW. Any info you have on fixing this via overlay would be appreciated. I will look up info on overlaying myself also, but bear in mind since I don’t know what an overlay is, I may not know what I’m looking for.

I have not seen any diskmaker dikstools with this drive, where shall I find these?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Under my continuing efforts, I have also found that:
-Using a percent of the HDD space my laptop can see instead of using the maximum available in a partition (which is, as far as the 5500CS knows, 8GB) also makes no difference when trying to do the required restart.
-I have used the 98SE FDISK “fix” (DL’d from the MS website) but have seen no difference in the size of the partition the 5500CS makes. It still makes no larger than 8GB partitions.

Something I have not mentioned:
When trying different suggestions and my own variations of partitioning, I always have to use the 6000 to delete the 5500CS’s partitions so the 5500CS will boot again. The 6000 acts as ‘reset’ so speak.

That is all I can think of right now, feel free to ask about anything I have not mentioned. I am also not up on computer jargon, so if what you say is something simple, I may still ask about it if I don’t understand the terminology used, so please pardon if I do ask something that seems to be silly.

Thank you for your help thus far, I really appreciate it!

[jtdoom]

hi

I suggested you read the sticky about setup (in win 98 forum) for this answers these questions.
my signature line points to it.

the overlay can be installed by the disktools you can download from the drive maker. (some sites downloads require you enter the serial number of the drive)
this dynamic drive overlay gets put on the hard disk, and the help readme you should see while going through the floppies menus should tell you what drive parameter settings are required in BIOS.
I have no idea wether you will have to use the 32Gb limitation jumper on that drive.
in any case, once you have it running and can use its full capacity, you should NEVER fix mbr, for that would delete the overlay program, and this would then make the data on it inaccessible.
(repair of the overlay could work, but one wrong move whilst repairing DDO, and data gets really zapped/scrambled by the subsequent fastformat.)

the disktool can fast format that drive for you... after you put the overlay on.
you must know the folling
the DDO program will give you a choice, "boot from hard disk/boot from floppy" and can do this ONLY WHEN YOU BOOT FROM HARD DISK, or a floppy that has this same overlay on it.
this means you should never boot straight from a standard floppy after this, BUT you can make a floppy what has the overlay on it as well (once again, this should be in the menus this installer offers), and you should make a few like it....

[jtdoom]

looks like you have to email them, and request that they mail you diskmanager (please explain that you NEED overlay).

the pulled it :(

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/sources/tsc.htm

[jtdoom]

we exchanged a couple private messages...

let me tell you something about diskmager software dowloads.
Those I recently tried are brand specific, and those very old EZdrive floppymakers require an older platform (my boxes run XP atm) to make the floppy's on (I can prolly crank up an old pentium for making ezdrive floppies)

and Hitachi no longer offers a disk manager on its web pages.
WORSE... I noticed something at hitachi.
It was something called feature disk...
It looks like they want you to waste space... by making the drive firmware tell the machine's bios that this is a smaller drive (what is normally done by jumper)

they should let you have diskmanager... with its real DDO.
------------

I hope they send this to you.
if not, we change tack?

this one is RISKY, to say the least...
Maybe you can use a diskmanager on another machine (one that has a brand of drive one can get the software for... it won't work its thing if there no drive of the brand present, but it allows you to install another brand drive once it found a drive that qualified....)

that 6000 might have another brand of drive, and I think this is worth a try.
(I do not want you to do this if this 6000 is the only working machine you have there, because you'd have to change connections and make that 80 hitachi primary master, with the system drive on the secondary chain, and the BIOS manually set for 32 Gb for the hitachi (as if it cannot recognise the hitachi)
even then you run the risk that the system drive this 6000 has becomes inactive, because the manager would ask which drive you gonna boot from, and you'd choose hitachi.
Once the hitachi is removed, you'd have to put the drive back to where it was hooked up, set the BIOS back to the state it was in before you connected the hitachi, and then, if it fails to boot from the old , you would have to make this one active again, and THAT could be really risky to your data...

personally, I would do it on a system with a new or blanked drive (no data at risk), but I do not know wether you have a spare blank drive around ...

I would not risk it if I have no backup, and even then I would consider that you run that risk of spending many hours getting the 6000 running again.

OH... I was assuming you had both connected at the same time...
if you cannot, forget this altogether.
----

or you get a smaller drive?

or get another brand you can get a drive manager for?
Maybe sell the hitachi, or use as second drive in other machine?
That is, IF (BIG IF) it can connect two hard drives...

or set this 80 to 32Gb... by that feature tool found at hitachi.