Hard Drive

[blazer2boy]

I'm having a problem with one of my older Harddrives.

Western Digital 3.2 Gig Caviar drive.

Now when I try to install an operation system on it.

When the system reboots I than get a message could not find
command_com IE windows\system\command_com. It asks where its
located. But no matter where I say to look it comes back with the same
statement.

I'm thinking it may have something to do with the MBR.
Any Ideas???

The system is being pasted together with old parts.

Motherboard Super socket 7 with TX Pro chipset (Tiger Direct)
233 MMX Pentium Processor
Sound Blaster AWE 64 sound card
Cardinal Supra 33.6 Modem
Matrox Mill PCI Video card 4MB


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Blazer

[Randy_tx]

If it were mine, I would do a LL format on it (nothing to lose) and start with a totally zeroed out HD....

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"As hard as a rock & dumb as a brick"...Windows CEMeNT

[blazer2boy]

Thanks Randy

I'll try this tonight.

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Blazer

[sleddog]

Boot to a floppy with fdisk.exe and sys.com on it.
Run fdisk. Make sure the primary partition is set "Active". Exit fdisk, reboot (again to the floppy) if you changed anything.
Then do:
A:\FDISK /MBR
A:\SYS C:
Pull out the floppy and reboot to the harddrive.

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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)

[blazer2boy]

Randy no luck doing a LL format.


Now that I'm in front of the machine the exact message is it looking for the command interperter E.G. Windows\command.com no matter what I try It
keeps asking the same thing.

Sleddog I see that you have posted will try your idea now just before bed time.

Let you know how it went.


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Blazer

[blazer2boy]

Sleddog you hit it on the head. Its up and running now.

Sled what did that do to the Master Boot Record?

Thanks Randy and Sled for the Help.


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Blazer

[sleddog]

It rewrites the Master Boot Record with a standard DOS/Windows boot loader.

If the problem recurs when you reboot it means the harddrive probably has a MBR virus. (If you reboot and all is well you can ignore the rest of this.) A MBR virus infects command.com. When you boot and command.com is executed, the virus scrambles the MBR. Replacing C:\command.com isn't usually enough to get rid of the virus, as it will find or create another infected command.com in C:\Windows. It'll then copy this infected file over the fresh, good one in C:\

To get rid of a MBR virus run a virus scanner, making sure you scan *all* of the C: drive. Put your boot floppy in and scan it too -- 'cause the virus will infect the command.com on it. When you're sure your C: is clean and you're confident you have a clean boot floppy, reboot to the floppy and do the FDISK, SYS procedure above. Oh, running FDISK /MBR affects *only* the boot sector -- you would lose any data on the drive.


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sleddog
[sleddog.f2s.com] (http://www.sleddog.f2s.com)