Hard Drive Sector 1 Failure

[mysticman]

The boot sector on my hard drive failed, although the FAT16 information and all other data is intact.
I tried reinstalling Windows95 but it did not work.
Is this drive finished for Boot purposes?
Can it still be used to hold data?
Can it be reformatted in FAT32 to avoid booting from Sector 1?

[Paleo Pete]

Before windows can be installed you'll have to run fdisk and repartition the drive, which rewrites the sector 1 that's causing the problem. Try this fdisk command:
fdisk /mbr and remember the space before the /.
This command rewrites the Master Boot Record, which is where the problem is.

If that doesn't work, then run fdisk and repartition the drive, format using the /s switch to make it bootable and reinstall windows.

Whether you can use FAT 32 depends on the version of Win 95, and the size of the drive. Smaller drives cannot use FAT 32, and Windows 95 first edition only supports FAT 16.

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[Charles Kozierok]

"Boot sector failed".. what exactly does this mean? I'd want to figure that out first.
Start with a virus scan. If that passes, get a low-level test util from whoever made your disk and run it through its paces. The drive could have something wrong with it, in which case you will want to replace it before you try to reinstall anything.

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Charles M. Kozierok
Webslave, The PC Guide (http://www.PCGuide.com)
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