Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (
More info?)
Hi Vanguard,
Tried Partion Magic (Partition Magic) [PTEDIT32] "ERROR Error reading MBR at
the specified sector". Does that jive with "Windows 98 has detected that
Drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition"?
~Alfred
"*Vanguard*" wrote:
> "Alfred_63" <Alfred63@discussions.microsoft.com>
> wrote in news:C1930F0F-4D79-4FE9-9050-E252E496CEE0@microsoft.com:
> > Vanguard,
> >
> > Thanks for all your help.
> >
> > 2.5 hours on the phone w/Sony was a waste of time, except I was able
> > to incorporate suggestions from Sony, this board and other boards to
> > identify my problem.
> >
> > One of suggestions the rep made was to set the storage drive to
> > Master and boot, which of course it wouldn't because there any system
> > files on the drive. Hours later, I recalled a suggestion to download
> > a Windows 98 boot and boot from the floppy drive. So, I set the drive
> > to master inserted my formatted disk and booted.
> >
> > The result should be of little surprise, I'm miffed at the misleading
> > error WD diagnostic gave me.
> >
> > Windows 98 has detected that Drive C does not contain a valid FAT or
> > FAT32 partition.
> >
> > Suprise, suprise. Sorry for misleading you, but I was only going on
> > all of the information provided to me WD and Sony.
> >
> > Thanks gain for taking the time to help me.
> >
> > "Alfred_63" wrote:
> >
> >> Vanguard,
> >>
> >> I want to thank for continued interest and support. I will call Sony
> >> in the morning, and with all of the information I believe I will be
> >> able to push the rep beyond the standard script.
> >>
> >> I will write again with the resolution, hopefully it will be good
> >> and it will become a reference for all.
> >>
> >> Thanks again!
> >>
> >> "*Vanguard*" wrote:
> >>
> >>> "Alfred_63" <Alfred63@discussions.microsoft.com>
> >>> wrote in news
6814074-15B0-49C3-9F36-AC95E0EB825B@microsoft.com:
> >>>> Alright, I'll follow your suggestions. To run chkdsk/r do I go to
> >>>> Start - Run and type chkdsk?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks Vanguard
> >>>>
> >>>> To follow up on your questions:
> >>>> 1. Your right, from Bootable disk provided by WD for install and
> >>>> diagnostics. It has a diagnostic tool and an option is to check the
> >>>> drive. That is where the 220 error is derived.
> >>>>
> >>>> 2. No, I have a seperate WD1200 for Systems and it is all on C. The
> >>>> drive in question is the storage or slave drive.
> >>>>
> >>>> 3. I have not run chkdsk/r
> >>>>
> >>>> 4. It is a recent problem. The drive has been operating smoothly
> >>>> for about a year.
> >>>>
> >>>> 5. Drive format, I don't recall, whatever WD recommended during
> >>>> install.
> >>>>
> >>>> 6. BIOS, can't find anything related to drive security.
> >>>>
> >>>> "*Vanguard*" wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Oh, and if you can get into Windows (because it loads from a
> >>>>> different drive), try doing a rescan of the hard drives in the
> >>>>> Disk Management MMC applet (diskmgmt.msc, Action -> Rescan Disks).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> --
> >>>>> __________________________________________________
> >>>>> *** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others.
> >>>>> (E-mail: domain = ".com", add "=NEWS=" to Subject)
> >>>>> __________________________________________________
> >>>
> >>> ATA-5 provides password locking of a drive. You might have to call
> >>> Sony tech support to find out from them how to unlock it. The idea
> >>> is that if the hard drive gets removed from a stolen laptop that it
> >>> remain unusable to the thief. It's a combo of BIOS support and
> >>> password on the drive (probably in the MBR or elsewhere on track 0).
> >>>
> >>> When I went to their support page (http://www.iq.sony.com/). By
> >>> searching on "PCVRX490TV", there was a link to
> >>> http://snipurl.com/89kp. The other articles also mention Micro
> >>> Vault but it seems to apply to removable drives (and removing the
> >>> password wipes the disk), but see if there is a password utility
> >>> installed for the Vaio. Looks like you might have to call Sony to
> >>> figure out how to reset the password (rather than remove it which
> >>> will remove your data, too). As when installing another instance
> >>> of Windows but you had used EFS under the old instance, you need to
> >>> have something of the security certificate, key, or password used
> >>> under that prior instance of Windows to unlock the other drives.
> >>> For EFS, you need to have exported the EFS certificate used to
> >>> encrypt the files so you could import it later. This eliminates
> >>> someone from stealing a computer, especially a laptop, and
> >>> installing a fresh copy of Windows or moving the drive to another
> >>> Windows host and getting at the data.
> >>>
> >>> Your reinstall of Windows wiped out the password it had to allow it
> >>> to access the other drive. On some laptops, like IBM's Thinkpads,
> >>> changing the BIOS supervisor password can also render the
> >>> password-protected hard drives unusable until you also reset the
> >>> password on them. The password is encoded into the particular BIOS
> >>> EEPROM(s) on a motherboard and used against the hard drive(s) used
> >>> with it, so if you replace the motherboard or carry the hard drive
> >>> to a different computer then you cannot read that drive because the
> >>> password stored on the hard drive won't mate with the key, if any,
> >>> in the other motherboard's BIOS. See
> >>>
http://snipurl.com/AMI_pwdlock for an example of how one BIOS maker
> >>> implements password protection of hard drives. However, it sounds
> >>> like your Windows reinstall wiped some password that was recorded,
> >>> probably a hashed value in the registry, by some security software
> >>> installed under that old and now gone instance of Windows; i.e., it
> >>> sounds like you had some software security product managing the
> >>> on-disk password rather than using the hardware method (via BIOS).
> >>> Presumably any software-managed security product should provide a
> >>> means of exporting the password to other removable or remote media
> >>> so you can later perform a restore.
> >>>
> >>> Only Sony probably knows for sure how to unlock a password-protected
> >>> hard drive but you'll have to be ready to provide proof that it is
> >>> your computer.
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> __________________________________________________
> >>> *** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others.
> >>> (E-mail: domain = ".com", add "=NEWS=" to Subject)
> >>> __________________________________________________
>
> Other than a virus changing the partition table or boot sector of a
> partition, did you at any time delete the partition and then recreate it
> exactly where it was thinking that the recreate would leave you with a
> partition just like before? You can delete a partition and then
> recreate it just where it was before and rescue the partition but the
> partition type won't be known and you need to use a disk editor or
> partition table editor that will let you set the partition type. If the
> boot sector got corrupted or infected then you could use FIXMBR and
> FIXBOOT to correct the boot sector. However, I don't think the latter
> was your case since this was the second hard drive (so its MBR doesn't
> get used) and not used for booting any OS.
>
> Did 'chkdsk D: /r' find any problems? It will correct problems in the
> file system but it won't fix the partition type recorded in the
> partition table. There are utilities around to do that for you to
> rescue partitions, or you could try using a partition table editor
> (Powerquest has one) to set the partition type. I had to do that after
> restoring the wrong backed up MBR.
>
>
> --
> __________________________________________________
> *** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others.
> (E-mail: domain = ".com", add "=NEWS=" to Subject)
> __________________________________________________
>
>
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