Very Computer

I suppose when I did this, I must have monkeyed with
the partitions, or something. In any case, when I got to
the end of the install, it alerted me that it could not write
the boot commands. After numerous installs I receive this
same message.

So I exit the install and re-boot on a DOS bootdisk. My 4.3
gig drive was partitioned into a 2.0, a 2.someother, and a
70-meg swap partition. I use DOS Fdisk to kill the
2.someother and the 70-meg.

After rebooting, I check the size of drive C:, and it reads 2.0 G.
Scandisk reveals some 50 illegal directories on it, a messed
up FAT, and several other errors. I format it, and it still goes
to 2.0 g.

So then I use FDisk to remove that partition, leaving me with
no partitions on my HD. I then try to make one big partition
which I will then divide in FIPS. I think what happened then
(This was at 3:00 last night) was that FDisk only allowed a
2.0 gig partition, which I made.

FDisk and FIPS recognized it as a 2.0 gig partition, they
had no idea where the other 2.someodd gigs of my HD space
went, and DOS dir read _4.3_ gigs free on Drive C.

So then I threw my hands up and went for restorrb.exe and
restored one of the configurations that FIPS backs up. The
best one I've been able to back up is a partition with a 70
meg swap, a 2.150, and a _4.33_. All of these coexist at
the same time. A 4.33 gig HD partitioned into a total of 6.5 gigs.

I have found no way to correct this error. Scandisk says al
is well on all three drives. I have no idea if my original error,
in the boot record, has been fixed. I don't want to proceed with a
Linux install because I don't want to make things worse.
I have no idea how to fix this problem. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance
------

"Oh no! It is Godzi-"....
NO CARRIER

What you probably have is a confused partition table with overlapped
partitions. These can work OK for a while, but sooner or later it will
crash.

The best place to start is just to look at the partition table and see
what's going on. You can do that by using PowerQuest's utility partinfo,
which you can get here:

http://www.powerquest.com/downlwd/Utilitiesindex.html

Run it from a DOS prompt with a command line like this to save your
partition information to a text file:

partinfo > partinfo.txt

Post the file here if you need some help interpreting it.

Another suggestion, if you want to use a free partitioner, is to try the
Ranish Partition Manager instead of fips. You can find two versions of
it at the link below. The older version (2.37.12) is more of complete
program but doesn't support large disks over 8.4GB. The new beta version
handles large disks and is easier to use, but it's still lacking some of
the extra features like saving/restoring the MBR.

Both can also save partition data to a text file similar to partinfo
(see command line options - type part /?), and either should work fine
for your situation.

http://www.users.intercom.com/~ranish/part/

Tom

Quote:>I had RH 5.0 Linux installed for about one day, and then
>decided to re-install it (again) to add my ZIP drive.

Quote:>I suppose when I did this, I must have monkeyed with
>the partitions, or something. In any case, when I got to
>the end of the install, it alerted me that it could not write
>the boot commands. After numerous installs I receive this
>same message.

>So I exit the install and re-boot on a DOS bootdisk. My 4.3
>gig drive was partitioned into a 2.0, a 2.someother, and a
>70-meg swap partition. I use DOS Fdisk to kill the
>2.someother and the 70-meg.

>After rebooting, I check the size of drive C:, and it reads 2.0 G.
>Scandisk reveals some 50 illegal directories on it, a messed
>up FAT, and several other errors. I format it, and it still goes
>to 2.0 g.

>So then I use FDisk to remove that partition, leaving me with
>no partitions on my HD. I then try to make one big partition
>which I will then divide in FIPS. I think what happened then
>(This was at 3:00 last night) was that FDisk only allowed a
>2.0 gig partition, which I made.

>FDisk and FIPS recognized it as a 2.0 gig partition, they
>had no idea where the other 2.someodd gigs of my HD space
>went, and DOS dir read _4.3_ gigs free on Drive C.

>So then I threw my hands up and went for restorrb.exe and
>restored one of the configurations that FIPS backs up. The
>best one I've been able to back up is a partition with a 70
>meg swap, a 2.150, and a _4.33_. All of these coexist at
>the same time. A 4.33 gig HD partitioned into a total of 6.5 gigs.

>I have found no way to correct this error. Scandisk says al
>is well on all three drives. I have no idea if my original error,
>in the boot record, has been fixed. I don't want to proceed with a
>Linux install because I don't want to make things worse.
>I have no idea how to fix this problem. Any ideas?