Storage (hard drives, DVD / CD drives, etc)

[Direhit]

This section is dedicated to hard drives, CD-ROM / R / RW, DVD-ROM (and writeables), as well as other removable storage solutions.

[Direhit]

Q: I think my hard drive has been infected at the boot sector by a virus. Will formatting take care of it?

A: No! Formatting will not remove a boot sector virus. Although you may clean out the rest of the hard drive of all viruses, you'll just re-infect your drive after you boot up again.

There are two ways of clearing out a boot sector virus, if your antivirus software was unable to do so. I will explain it as simply as possible.

First, find a computer that you know is virus-free, and running DOS, Win 95, or Win 98, and make a bootable floppy by putting a floppy disk in the drive and typing the following (assuming your 3.5" 1.44 MB floppy drive is A: ) :

format a: /s

Then, copy over the fdisk.exe and sys.com (or it could be sys.exe ) files over to this floppy disk. Write protect this disk.

Physically shut down your computer (power off), and let it sit for a minute. Boot your computer from the floppy drive, and wait until you see the A:\ prompt. Type the following command:

fdisk /mbr

and this will reset your master boot record.

For those of you who, for some reason or another, can't find fdisk.exe on a PC, or don't know how to type fdisk (yes, there are some people here like that), you can accomplish the same thing by typing in this command instead, from the A:\ prompt after you have booted from the floppy disk:

sys c:

If you don't know how to boot from a floppy disk, there is one final method that you can use. You can physically remove the suspect hard drive from your system, and use it as a slave on another computer that has Norton Antivirus running on it. Do NOT boot from the infected hard drive; boot from the computer's drive it normall boots from. Scan the disk thoroughly.

Remember, this only works if your operating system recognizes the filing system. Thus, a system running Win 95, 98, or ME, will not see a drive that has been formatted with NTFS, unless you somehow got a hold of third party program. Because the installation and configuration of that third party program is a pain, I will not say how to do this.

If the above suggestions seem like too much of a task, and you don't want to spend the time, then you'll have to spend the money to have a computer shop fix it for you, and that's no guarantee of you leaving your data intact. Let's face it: you can be either lazy or poor, and still have a working computer. You can't be both.

Note:

Using fdisk /mbr or sys c: also restores boot sectors that have boot managers on them, if you don't want to keep that boot manager. This is a common mistake of people who want to setup a dual boot system of Linux and Windows, where they accidentally install the Linux booter on the master boot record, and suddenly find that they can't boot Windows at all.

[Direhit]

Q: I have a 20 gigabyte hard drive, and want to copy over its contents to an 80 gigabyte hard drive, but don't know how to do this.

A: The best thing to do is to use a program such as Symantec's Ghost, which clones hard drives, and can even do individual partitions, from one drive to another, or even one partition within a hard drive to another.

If you can get the Corporate version, you get even more power, as this version even works with Linux partitions. However, if you are going to work with Linux partitions, you may want to thoroughly read Ep's contribution at the bottom.

If you can't (or refuse to buy) find Ghost, and want to clone a Windows 95, 98, or ME drive, do the following:

1) Create a bootable floppy disk:

format a: /s

2) Copy format.com and fdisk.exe to this bootable floppy.

3) Unplug all hard drives except for the new hard drive. Set the hard drive to Master (or Single, if it is a Western Digital)

4) Reboot using the floppy disk, but make sure that you enter the BIOS, and set all EIDE port settings to "Auto", and run fdisk.exe from the a:\ prompt. When given the option to enable large disk access mode, select "y."

Check to see that there are no partitions on this drive. Create a partition of the desired size (most folks will choose the maximum size), and when asked if you want to set this partition to be active, select "y."

4) Exit out of FDISK (or else your changes will not take place), and once you see the DOS prompt, reboot again using the floppy disk.

5) When you get to the DOS prompt again, format the new partition:

format c: /s /u

6) Read a book, watch TV, drink some beer, or whatever you want to do while the long and slow formatting process is progressing.

7) Once the drive is formatted, turn off your computer. Disconnect this drive, and put it on the Secondary IDE port as a Master / Single. Reconnect your old hard drive to the Primary Master, and reboot your computer. Once you get to your Windows GUI, open up a MSDOS prompt. This must be done from within Windows itself, and not a command prompt boot.

8) Type the following command:

xcopy c:\*.* d:\ /r /i /c /h /k /e /y

9) Finish your book, TV program, or beer while all files copy over.

10) Once the copying is finished, shut down your computer, and reconnect the new hard drive back to the Primary Master, and put your old hard drive in some safe place, unless you want to keep using it. Re-attach all of your other IDE peripherals as they were before, and boot your computer again.

11) Your drive should be ready to go, and in the process, you actually did a defragging job in it as well.



Linux addendum

Ep's contribution:

Recently had to migrate 2 of my servers to new drive arrays without rebuilding them from scratch(both are live servers providing internet based services to clients).

The 1st system is a Linux based system that uses an AMI 1600 series raid controller(scsi), setup in a raid5 configuration. The 2k system uses 2 mirror sets(both scsi) via 2k's software raid.

The Linux system exposed a weakness of Ghost in that it does not support logical drives created by hardware based raid controllers. What I found is a similar utility to Ghost by a company called "Acronis", that worked very nicely. The program, "MigrateEasy", allows you to create a bootable cd or floppy, and run the program from them. Partition sizes can be adjusted as desired, and it supports file systems - partition types from most current major OS's(including the various journaling file systems). Acronis has a 2nd application called "True Image" which deals strictly with imaging disks / partitions. Both apps can manage Windows based disks / partitions from within Windows(very nice, Ghost forces you to boot to dos).

The 2k system exposed a weakness of the Acronis software in that they do not support dynamic disks. Ghost 2003 does offer limited support for dynamic disks, and offers limited support for basic and dynamic disks running as raid1.

Acronis also has a partition tool similar to Partition Magic, and a boot manager similar to System Commander.

www.acronis.com

[Direhit]

Q: I want to buy a DVD-recorder drive, but which one should I get?

A: Right now, there are several standards in existence. One of two major standards will eventually win out, but at this stage, it's still too early to tell.

The standards currently out there:

DVD-RAM:

This is the oldest standard, and is dying a rapid death. Do not bother getting one of these drives, unless you can find them for 20 bucks, and can find the media at a few bucks apiece.

DVD-R / DVD-RW:

Called DVD dash R or DVD dash RW, this is one of the two major standards out there. The standard medium is a 4.7 gigabyte DVD-R or DVD-RW disc. This standard is backed by Pioneer and several other members of the DVD-forum.

There are two types of DVD-R recorders:

DVD-RG

The common ones found in your home PC are probably DVD-RG (general) recorders based on a red 650 nm laser, and are generally single sided burners only.

DVD-RA

These are more of a commercial recorder, and are based on a red-orange 635 nm laser, and can burn in "double sided mode."

DVD+R / DVD+RW

This is called DVD plus R or DVD plus RW. This standard is similar to the DVD-R / DVD-RW standard, but offers some improvements, such as giving you a "no defect management" option.

This standard is supported by Philips, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Ricoh, Yamaha, and others.

You can read about the entire summary, as to what standard is compatible with what player here:

http://www.dvddemystified.com/dvdfaq.html#4.3.2

The vast majority of DVD burners can now burn to all four formats, namely DVD-R / DVD-RW and DVD+R / DVD+RW. Thus, it now makes no sense to buy a burner that can only do DVD+R/+RW or DVD-R/-RW, when today's burners can do it all. With DVD burners now costing under 30 dollars from Newegg.com, you're going to be in pretty good shape, regardless of what media is available.

[Direhit]

Q: My hard drive is only being recognized as a 32 GB hard drive, even though I know, for sure, that it is a 60 GB hard drive. What happened?

A: There are two possibilities here. One is that your motherboard's BIOS is incapable of recognizing large sized hard drives. Go to your motherboard manufacturer's web site, and look at the BIOS files for your particular model, and their descriptions. Flash your BIOS according to the manufacturer's instructions.

The other possibility is due to a limitation in the FAT32 filing system used with the older versions of Windows. Any version of FDISK.EXE up to Windows 98 SE, has this bug, and you can download the upgraded version from Microsoft's website, if you are running one of the older versions of Windows.

In Windows ME, FDISK.EXE is not susceptible to this.

In Windows 2000 Professional and XP, you are MUCH better off using NTFS, not FAT32, for these larger drives.

[Direhit]

Q: I keep trying to run the scandisk, or the disk defragmentation program built into Windows 95/98/ME, and I keep getting an error message that says:

Your Computer Does Not Have Enough Free Memory to Defrag the Drive

What is wrong? I have more than enough memory.

A: This is a problem with your file allocation table itself.

From Microsoft:


This issue can occur if you are running Windows on a hard disk that is larger than 8 gigabytes in size and has a cluster size less than 8 kilobytes. This configuration may be created if you use a third-party disk tool to create a partition on a hard disk that is larger than 8 GB in size and has a cluster size less than 8 KB.


To fix this, go to the website of whatever 3rd party software you used to partition the drive, and see if there's a patch that allows you to change the cluster size to something larger.

If this is not possible, and you want to take care of this problem, backup your critical files, and wipe out the partition, and create a new one using Microsoft's FDISK.EXE (which should automatically select the correct cluster size), or make sure you select a large enough cluster size in the 3rd party program. Here is Microsoft's guideline:

The default cluster sizes are listed in the following table.


Hard disk size Cluster size
-------------------------------
512 MB to 8 GB 4 KB
8 GB to 16 GB 8 KB
16 GB to 32 GB 16 KB
32 GB and larger 32 KB

[Direhit]

Q: I saw an advertisement for a PD-ROM drive burner, and the price on it was very cheap. Can this burn CD's for me?

A: No. A PD-ROM drive is NOT the same as a CD-R / CD-RW drive. It operates on Phase Differentiation technology instead. Besides, Phase Differential media is exceptionally rare these days, and simply not worth it. Do not be suckered into buying one of these drives, no matter how low the cost.

[Direhit]

Q: My hard drive died, but I have to get the data off it, since I don't have any backups. How would I go about doing this?

A: Shame on you for not backing up your data faithfully.

You are going to have to go through a data recovery service, and this is not cheap at all. Don't be surprised if you get a bill for $1000+.

If you are part of a school, and this happened to a computer that is part of that school, then contact the IT guy, as your school may have a data recovery contract with someone at a highly reduced cost.

Some decent companies:

http://www.drivesavers.com/
http://www.ontrack.com/
http://www.datarec.com/

[Direhit]

Q: My non-SCSI system has a motherboard that says it has a RAID controller on it. Of what use is this to me?

A: RAID = Redundant Array of Independent Drives. Typically, this involves two or more hard drives working in conjunction with each other. A RAID can thus give you extra speed, security, or even both, assuming you have enough drives.

The two most common types of RAID's used are RAID 0 and RAID 1. While RAID 5 is also present in significant amounts, such RAID's require true hardware-based controllers, and not the software-based controllers built into the inexpensive motherboards.

There are other RAID types, but for the vast majority of users here who choose to employ this, they aren't really used that much at all. Those that do use them already know what they need them for and need not read any further, since they would probably laugh at the over-simplified summaries I've written.

RAID 0: This is called "Striping," and combines two (or more) hard drives together, and the total capacity of the combined drives will be double that of the smaller hard drive. Thus, if you have a 30 GB and 20 GB hard drive connected together in a RAID 0, the effective drive space will be 40 GB (2 x 20 GB). This generates the fastest RAID, effectively doubling your hard drive speed, since the reading / writing tasks are split between both drives.

While this sounds fine and dandy, it also does not offer any real security. If one drive fails, then both drives are pretty much useless (although re-partitioning and reformatting can help restore the undamaged drive to a functional one again).

RAID 1: This called "Mirroring," and combines two hard drives, but this time, what is written to one drive is also identically written to another drive for backup purposes.

The big advantage here, is that you now have a backup clone of your hard drive, should your main drive fail.

The disadvantages are, that your hard drive capacity will be equal to the size of the smaller hard drive. You also do not gain any speed benefits here.

If someone has multiple hard drives (at least 4), he can make a combination RAID 0 + 1, which would split the drives into 2 sets of pairs, with each set making a RAID 0 (for extra speed). One RAID 0 would backup the other RAID 0, giving RAID 1 security.

The disadvantage to this, of course, is that you need 4+ drives, and if you're willing to spend that much, then you may as well have already gone with a hardware-based solution.

_____________________________________________


Of course, you don't have to use the RAID controller in such a manner; almost all motherboards with EIDE RAID controllers will allow you to use the RAID controller as standard EIDE controllers. It all depends on what you want / need.

[Direhit]

Q: Are there any ways to fit more than 700 megabytes of information on a 700 megabyte CD? I'm not just referring to standard overburn; I want to be able to fit 800+ megabytes on a CD.

A: The feature you are thinking of, is found on Plextor's latest CD-RW drive (52X/32X/52X). This drive supports a feature that allows you to fit an entire gigabyte of data on a standard 700 MB CD-R blank. Keep in mind, however, that if you choose to use this feature, you can only burn at a speed of up to 4X.

Also, with the prices of DVD burners dropping down to the same price as Plextor's best CD-RW drive, you will probably be happier with an NEC 2500A DVD burner instead...

[Direhit]

Q: I got a SCSI controller, and was trying to get an older SCSI drive to work with it. All of my newer drives work fine, but the older one will not work. Is there anything I can do?

A: In this case, you are probably trying to run a non-LVD drive off the LVD connector. Most decent SCSI cards will have two 68 pin connectors; one for LVD, and the other for non-LVD.

[Direhit]

Q: Are there any ways to attach IDE devices to a SCSI card?

A: Yes. There are adapter kits that are made by various manufacturers that will allow you to connect an IDE drive to a SCSI cable:

http://www.directron.com/aec7720u.html

These are handy if you have a SCSI controller, and cannot get your motherboard's IDE controllers to properly coexist with all of your other peripherals.

[Direhit]

Q: I want to replace my old PCI SCSI card with a new one, but will they work with my system?

A: This is a complicated question, with complicated answers.

For the most part, if your motherboard has PCI 2.2 compliant slots, you should be able to use most of the cards out there that are not PCI-X.

Some cards, such as MOST of Adaptec's Ultra 160 cards, are PCI 2.2 (64 bit), but are backwards compatible with PCI 2.1 (32 bit), while one particular Adaptec 29160 card is PCI 2.1 (32 bit only).

PCI 2.0 and 2.1 cards will work just fine in PCI 2.2 cards, but the opposite may not necessarily be true, as not all PCI 2.2 (64 bit interface) cards can work with older slots. As always, check the specifications of the card itself.


Of even greater importance is the compatibility between your SCSI drives and your card. Just about all newer SCSI drives use the Low Voltage Differential (LVD) connector, and very few modern drives use the older, SE (non-LVD) connector.

Given the prices of SCSI drives these days, it makes no sense to spend the money trying to stick with the older SE setup.

[Direhit]

Q: I purchased a Lite-On DVD-ROM drive, but my BIOS recognizes it as a "JLMS" brand. Did I get the wrong drive?

A: You got the correct drive. Lite-On products are frequently listed as JLMS brand drives, which stands for JVC, LiteOn It, Manufacturing Services.

[Direhit]

Q: OK. Then if I get a DVD-R/RW or DVD+R/RW drive, can I make direct copies of my DVD movies for my own archival use?

A: Yes.

In addition to your DVD burner, you should also get a standalone DVD-ROM drive. These drives have become very inexpensive, starting out at 30 dollars, so cost shouldn't be an issue here.

Now that 321 Studios has gone belly-up, you should turn to some free programs that can do the job for you:

http://www.doom9.org/

That website has all of the resources and links, as well as an excellent tutorial. Currently, the preferred way is to use DVD Shrink to decrypt and rip the copy protected movie to your hard drive, and then to use your favorite DVD burning software, such as Nero or Roxio, to burn the movie to your DVD blank.

You can also use DVD Decrypter. Again, READ THE EXCELLENT TUTORIALS THAT ARE ON THE DOOM9 WEBSITE!!!