OpenServer 5.0.2 hd woes...

From: William Katz (druid_at_dorsai.org)
Date: 01/29/04

  • Next message: FyRE: "Re: Telnet printing" 
    Date: 29 Jan 2004 07:53:21 GMT

    A few days ago I turned on my old 486 computer to use SCO OpenServer
    (5.0.2). The last time I used it was a few months ago. Anyway, it was fine
    for a few hours. After a while, some error messages appeared on the
    screen. They were hard drive block errors I think (I forget exactly)... I
    have seen this before, and what I did was flip the power switch on the
    computer, then turn it back on, where it went through the filesystem
    check.
    This time I had to do the same thing, since the operating system was not
    responding (I could type at the keyboard, but there was no OS5 response).
    What I think happened was the power connector to the hard drive became
    loose and it lost power for a bit. The hard drive heads sounded like it
    was starting up again.. I know this because I keep the case cover off, and
    noticed it.

    After I turned it off via the power switch on the front of the case, I
    left it off for a day. The next day I turned on the computer, and SCO did
    not load!
    The computer sees the hard drive is there, but it does not load the boot
    loader. It just prompts for a boot floppy in drive 'A:'.

    I rebooted the computer a few times, and the same result occurs. So, I put
    in an msdos boot disk, and went into fdisk. This reveals the hard drive
    is there (as it should be), but there are no partitions!! I then booted up
    with a Slackware Linux boot disk, went into fdisk, and it also shows the
    hard drive, but no partitions defined!

    It's an old 486 computer, and the hard drive is old too (Western Digital
    540MB hard drive). FreeSCO OpenServer 5.0.2 is on it, as well as a small
    20MB dos partition. I don't really care too much about the 20MB dos
    partition, but my SCO partition is vital! I fear that I may have lost 8
    years of data on it.

    Can someone please help me?? It almost looks like the boot sector got
    vaporized, thus "blanking" out the partition information? Can I restore
    the boot sector?
    Ohh, I did create 2 emergency floppy disks a few years ago, when I
    installed SCO OS5.0.2 They are FreeSCO ODT5 BOOT Filesystem (Disk 1), and
    FreeSCO ODT ROOT Filesystem (Disk 2). I have also booted the computer
    with these disks, and yes, fdisk shows no partitions as well. I'm guessing
    (hoping?) that I can restore the boot sector with these disks, and
    hopefully get my hard drive back the way it was?
    I will be very grateful to anyway that can help with this.
    Thanks. 

    -- 
William D. Katz "a good skier"
Internet: druid@dorsai.org
Internet: wkatz@nyx.net
  • Next message: FyRE: "Re: Telnet printing"

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