🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <66nd76$ari$1@news2.sirius.com>
           minister@sirius.com "Bill R. Adams" writes:

"While purging old files in windows programs, I deleted my DoubleSpace
"files only to discover I made a mistake, apparently wiping out some
"system files that I need to run DOS.  Even with a boot disk, the
"machine can only read the A: drive and cannot find the C: drive at
"all, much less get me to Windows. I've received several error messages
"when rebooting or turning the machine on.  I need an interpretation
"and, of course, some direction on correcting the problem.

    Oh my goodness!  Much sympathy.  But we need more info.

    First.  By "my DoubleSpace files"; do you mean DBLSPACE.* (where
 * includes BIN, EXE, SYS etc), or the actual disk-files DBLSPACE.00?,
 (where ? starts at 0 and goes on up)?  And where did you delete
 them from (ie C: or the host-drive, probably H: or I:)?  And when
 you set up DBLSPACE, did you do a standard compression of the
 C:-drive, or something else?  Where was your DOS directory; and
 is it still there?  If C: is non-available, is any other drive?
 If none, can FDISK see the HDD?

    If you deleted the D.00? files, you've lost everything on them,
 and a reinstall from scratch, or reload from backup, is indicated.

    If it's just the D.EXE etc, then all you need is to recopy
 them from any DOS source.  Since you say DBLSPACE, not DRVSPACE,
 presumably DOS 6.0 (not recommended) or 6.20.

"Error messages I have received are:
"* Non system disk on disk error                    1
"* Invalid drive in search path                     2
"* Invalid drive specifications                     3
"
"(Errors after using boot disk read)
"- HMA not available: Loading DOS low               4
"- Several Files not found                          5
"- Bad or missing:                                  6
" * HIMEM.SYS  Error in Config.sys Line 1           7
" * EMM386. EXE ...........................Line 2   8
" * DBLSPACE.SYS.........................Line 10    9
" * Winwave\DSP16.SYS................Line 11       10

    These error-messages are not in the format I would expect, but
 perhaps you reformatted them.  I've numbered them on the right.

    '1' means you've lost the boot records on the HDD, or deleted
 IO.SYS & MSDOS.SYS, or actually got a disk-error.

    It should not be possible to get '2' & '3', because '1' should
 have brought everything to a grinding halt.  How did you get them?

    '4' to '10' indicate that the boot-disk (floppy) you were using
 is quite inappropriate for an emergency boot.  Where did you get
 it from?  It would seem to have copies of the CONFIG.SYS and
 AUTOEXEC.BAT from the HDD, which don't work because they assume a
 HDD setup, not a FDD one.  An emergency boot-floppy needs to have
 a well-thought-out subset of DOS on it, with appropriate AUTOEXEC
 and CONFIG.

    When you have booted (even with errors) from your floppy, what
 is the response to 'DIR C:' or etc?

    If you post a snail-address (or mail me, unscrambling the
 spam-preventers), I'll snail you a decently tailored emergency boot
 disk (DOS 6.20 or 6.22).  Then you can investigate what's still on
 the HDD.  And we can take it from there.

                                    Chris K.
-- 
Chris Kennington (newshound)                        01491 574065
  You can mail me with suitable modifications to header-addresses,
   or to "chris <at> inf-eden.demon.co.uk", replacing the <at>.