Re: Reformatting hard disk.

On Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:08:23 -0800 (PST), "john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx" <john@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

After various experiments, including an attempt to install Windows
2000 (it failed) I can no longer boot from /dev/hda. I have
reassigned /dev/hdb as my hard drive boot device in the bios.

Now I want to do a low level format on /dev/hda and start all over. I
have already tried the trick of using a DOS fdisk from a floppy to
zero out the MBR:
A: fdisk /mbr
That may have made things worse, I don't know.

Doesn't help linux :)

There is a dd command that will zero out the mbr first block but I
forget what the exact string is.

dd if=/dev/zero bs=512 count=63 of=/dev/hda

Zeroes out the first cylinder, clears the partition table...

I prefer to zero the entire drive for reuse, this also gives the drive a
chance to remap any iffy sectors:

dd if=/dev/zero bs=1M of=/dev/hda

The /hda drive is a recent 250MB drive. Windows 2000 however sees it
as a 133MB drive.

You need winxp sp2 to get the LBA48 driver (LBA48 is how to address >128GiB),
don't know if msft made a fix for win2k.

When I try to use it in a normal manner as the boot device LILO gives
me an L followed by
series of 99 99 99 etc.

Forget to run lilo after rewriting /etc/lilo.conf?

Grant.
--
http://bugsplatter.mine.nu/
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Reformatting hard disk.
    ... reassigned /dev/hdb as my hard drive boot device in the bios. ... have already tried the trick of using a DOS fdisk from a floppy to ... zero out the MBR: ... But lilo might have gone to the wrong drive. ...
    (comp.os.linux.hardware)
  • Re: Reformatting hard disk.
    ... reassigned /dev/hdb as my hard drive boot device in the bios. ... have already tried the trick of using a DOS fdisk from a floppy to ... There is a dd command that will zero out the mbr first block but I ...
    (comp.os.linux.hardware)