🚀 go-pugleaf

[The origianl article was posted (by error) in d.i.s.pc, where it got
 some answers but not of the sort it would have got from the proper
 fraternity, d.t.pc, so I am including the whole text with my answer.]

On Thursday, in article <39931279.9C824A81@fcc.net>
     michaelm@fcc.net "Michael Morenberg" wrote:

"I turned on my computer and instead of getting my usual Windows 98, I
"got a "read error".
"Tried many times, but only got read error.  I was eventually able to get
"a C prompt.  from
"the C prompt I could execute DOS commands.  When I try to get into
"windows I still
"get the read error.
"
"I tried to reload windows, but I still get a "read error".  Seagate is
"no help, they gave me
"several companies that could extract the data.
"
"I have no idea of how to solve this problem.  Is there any software outs
"there that can
"help me extract the data on my drive (9.1 gig seagate).  I have
"purchased a new 30.6 gig
"seagate drive.
"
"Are there any other newsgroups more appropriate then the ones I have
"addressed.
"
"PLEASE HELP ME.
"
"Fred.
"

Michael:

    You had a few responses - some not too complimentary!  - in
 d.i.s.pc, but perhaps one should go a little deeper.  There are a
 surprising number of highly computerate and highly helpful people in
 this NG (d.t.pc); many more expert than I.  But here's 2p worth.

    Everyone running Win9x (and presumably also Win2K) should have
 a boot floppy.  This is also known as a rescue disk.  With it (and
 provided you have set your PC's BIOS to try booting from floppy
 before booting from HDD) you can get at your HDD without booting
 from it.  Win9x has an option (in 'Windows Setup') to create such a
 disk, as do many of the utility packages such as Norton.  Personally
 I have my own carefully crafted one (which I'll snail you a copy of
 if you e-mail me your address, if you like).  This disk will only boot
 to DOS, of course; but it has the same effect as the F8 option
 "Command prompt only".

    There are many things you can do at the DOS-prompt (which will
 now be "A:>") to investigate the C-drive.  And to repair it.  There
 exist a raft of utilities designed to do this.  I use Norton.  But
 FDISK will give you quite a bit of information; and Partition Magic
 will do some remarkable things; and Spinrite will often fix HDD
 problems which are semi-software, ie things written wrongly on the
 disk rather than real I/O errors.

    You will get lots of advice in these NGs about what to do next.
 Most of it will be sound.  But when posting a request for help,
 always say exactly what happened.  If you get an error message,
 quote it fully and explain how far you had got into the booting (or
 other) process before the error occurred.

    In your particular case, you have solved the problem by replacing
 the HDD.  This was probably unnecessary.  But at least you ought now
 to do a full post-mortem on the old disk, (slaved to the new), to find
 out what was wrong.

    As suggested, you may have a virus.  Get and run the latest copy
 of F-Prot (from www.complex.is).  Or one of several other good
 scanners.  If you find that you had one, then you will need to test
 ALL of your floppies (and CD or other backups); which is a fine old
 hassle.  But viruses have to be exterminated, not tolerated.

    There are other angles to all this, such as how to interpret
 partition-info from FDISK etc, how to rewrite the Master Boot
 record, and what happens if you have Ontrack Disk Manager (or
 similar) installed.  Hang around in this newsgroup and you will find
 out.  (I am e-mailing you to tell you to do this, in case this
 posting doesn't reach you.)

                                        Chris K.
-- 
Chris Kennington in anti-spam news-posting mode.
  If e-mailing replies, please use name "chris@".