Author Topic: Help me plz, VERY off topic (Read 4674 times)

eagl · « **Reply #30 on:** March 28, 2000, 08:00:00 PM »

Udie,

Have you gone into the BIOS and made everything in there look "normal"?

Also, you could try not using a win98 rescue or startup disk, but instead initially just make a bootable floppy (format it under win98 and have it copy system files) and put format and fdisk utilities on it.

FDISK /MBR will clear out the master boot record on the hard drive, which can clear up some boot and HD recognition problems as well.

You can also check some hard drive manufacturer's sites for their low-level formatting utilities. Western Digital has some that should be able to completely reset the hard drive to essentially factory blank condition.

IMHO there's no such thing as an "nt only workstation"... There just HAS to be a way to hack that sucker if it's based on standard PC components

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eagl <squealing Pigs> BYA
Oink Oink To War!!!

ChickenHawk · « **Reply #31 on:** March 28, 2000, 10:40:00 PM »

eagl is correct. There is no such thing as an NT only computer. He is also right about making a fresh boot disk. Just FDISK and FORMAT /S (/S copies the system files) At this point the computer should boot to a C:\ prompt. Now your only problem is getting CD-Rom access. It would take me too long to write out how to add DOS CD-Rom drivers. I hope you have a boot disk with CD-Rom support. If you do, your home free. Good luck!

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ChknHawk
"Your a chicken, I'm a chicken hawk. And I'm gonna eat chicken!"

hblair · « **Reply #32 on:** March 29, 2000, 01:22:00 AM »

While we got all the 'puter experts here, Any of you guys know much about Novell? In our small business (4 workstations) our novell server is on the fritz as always. Always comes up with critical errors overnight, lockups during the day, been going on for too long.

We've had our novell guy out many times. He's loaded the newest novell client on all the machines, reloaded the software on the server, yada yada yada.

Our novell guy said it could possibly be a flaky CPU, or a motherboard prob.

Today I finally threw in the towel and am having a new server box built. We'll load all the new server software on a fresh hard drive with all new (different) hardware. What do you guys think of this? It is purely a last resort kinda thing.

Thoughts?

ChickenHawk · « **Reply #33 on:** March 29, 2000, 10:18:00 AM »

hblair,

As a CNE, I know a thing or two about Novell. Your network guy is doing the right thing, loading the latest client on the workstations and service packs on the server. The hard part is knowing whether it's software or hardware thats abending your server. Without knowing what NLMs you have loaded and monitoring them over time, I wouldn't be able to even hazard a guess as to whether it's software related.

At this point, a new server sounds like a good way to go. If it works, you will know it was the hardware.

Stick with Novell. It's the best network operating system out there IMHO. Good luck.

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #34 on:** March 29, 2000, 11:40:00 AM »

Udie,

You need to stop using the Win98 boot disk. Find a computer that has a dos prompt available and make a new boot disk that is totally clean. Do this by typing the command:

format a: /s

Then, on the same computer you format the floppy boot disk on, do a search for "fdisk.*" and "format.*". In Win98 they are usually located in the \windows\command directory. Copy these two files to the floppy.

Once you have this disk, try going after the NTFS partition again. It almost seems as if the Win98 setup portion on that floppy is giving you problems.

AKDejaVu

Wanker · « **Reply #35 on:** March 29, 2000, 12:37:00 PM »

Quote

"that's an NT only workstation."

LOL! That's the most ignorant thing I've heard in a long, long time.

Udie, there is a way to get rid of this partition. I'm still researching what is the best way to accomplish it.

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banana
308 (Polish) Squadron RAF "City of Cracow"
"On the whole, it is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them"

fats · « **Reply #36 on:** March 30, 2000, 02:20:00 AM »

--- AKDejaVu: ---
You'll want to do that anyway since NTFS only allows 4 Gig partitions
--- end ---

Now that is completely untrue of course. You might get this impression from doing a clean NT install, and noticing that you can only create 4GB paritions with the installation program. But the limitation is not caused by NTFS but FAT16! The silly installation program converts the volume( s ) first to FAT16 and then to NTFS - reason for this I don't know - thus your parition size is limited by FAT16's limitations.

With NTFS you can create bigger partitions than 4GB from within NT, concatenate multiple physical drives into single logical drive and so on...

//fats

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #37 on:** March 30, 2000, 02:32:00 AM »

Don't think so fats. If you use a program such as partition magic you can create larger drives. Fat16 has a 2 gig limit. I've never been able to use NT to create anything larger than a 4 Gig NTFS drive. Win2000 blows past this though.

AKDejaVu

Maniac · « **Reply #38 on:** March 30, 2000, 02:48:00 AM »

Udie as the other stated there is NOT AN SUCH THING AS AN NT ONLY WS!

If you want to get rid of the NTFS partition you could use an clean win95/98 boot disk and then use an program called Partition Magic, its truly an great program.

Regards.

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AH : Maniac
WB : -nr-1-

http://www.rsaf.org/osf/

fats · « **Reply #39 on:** March 30, 2000, 03:02:00 AM »

--- AKDejaVu: ---
Fat16 has a 2 gig limit.
--- end ---

FAT16 has 4GB limit under NT. FAT16 has 2GB limit under DOS/Win95 and Win98. FAT16 uses 16-bit fields to store file sizes and cluster size of 64KB under NT thus the 4GB. NTFS uses 64-bit fields and can do 16 exabytes ( 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes ), how ever there are other limitations that will cut in _way_ before this.

SP4 includes an updated 'Atapi.sys' that works properly with disks larger than 8GB. I would be cautious when using Partition Magic, if it's not newer than 3.03 it will not understand the INT 13 extensions and as a result may completely screw up your 8GB or bigger drive.

Also it is possible to create larger than 4GB partition during install time if you perform an unattended installation using the ExtendOEMPartition flag like so:

[Unattended]
FileSystem = convertNTFS
ExtendOemPartition = 1, NoWait

You must have SP1 or greater for this to work. If you are unable to create larger than 4GB drivers, it doesn't meen that NTFS doesn't do it.

//fats

AKDejaVu · « **Reply #40 on:** March 30, 2000, 03:10:00 AM »

LOL Fats!

Let me put it this way...

When I've installed NT 4.0, I've inserted the CD, made the boot disks and gone from there. Even with a clean HD, it wouldn't make over a 4 Gig NTFS partition.

After I installed NT 4.0 (and SPx), if I went into HD management, it still would not create larger than a 4 Gig NTFS drive.

That is where I got my information. It seems that yours comes from a higher source though, so I bow to your NT knowledge.

AKDejaVu

Wanker · « **Reply #41 on:** March 30, 2000, 07:39:00 AM »

NT Workstation has a 2.0GB partition limit when first installing, and NT Server has a 4GB limitation. Once NT is installed and the file system has been converted to NTFS, then using Disk Administrator, you may create partitions larger than 4GB's. These will mostly consist of one large extended partition that is divided up into one or more logical drives.

A good idea when using NT is to create a 2GB partition where your NT installation will be, then to use the rest of the drive for your applications and data. By isolating NT from your apps, it makes it easier to recover your data if NT blows up.

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banana
308 (Polish) Squadron RAF "City of Cracow"
"On the whole, it is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them"

fats · « **Reply #42 on:** March 30, 2000, 02:27:00 PM »

banana:

I belive you can install workstation and server onto bigger partition than 4GB. And both can create bigger partitions than 4GB during installation, it just has to be an unattended installation.

For example my NT workstation is installed on a 8GB partition. Which is not possible if you have an 'older' BIOS though.

Partitions are located by their start and end, which are stored like so: Head, Cylinder and Sector values for both the start and the end. The Head is 8 bits. The Cylinder is 10 bits. The Sector is 6 bits. The number of sectors is 256 * 1024 * 63. Standard sectors are 512 bytes, so there's a 7.87GB limit with older BIOS.

//fats

K-KEN · « **Reply #43 on:** March 31, 2000, 06:49:00 PM »

hehehe Thanks for the input.....I am trying to pass the NT 4.0 Server Exam now. I am thinking-at least in the exam, 2 GB is max.
WIN98 and NT are not compatable...period.
A dual boot system with DOS, WIN3.X and WIN95 is possible, but you have to make sure you partition the HD with both FAT and NTFS.
There are other issues including permissions,and shares, concerning files and folders using NT. Using WIN95 might be an option, as NT recognizes it. Just saying....
K-KEN

http://www.cutthroats.com/

[This message has been edited by K-KEN (edited 03-31-2000).]

Macboy · « **Reply #44 on:** March 31, 2000, 09:39:00 PM »

Lol... such a good OS ... what a joke

you go boyz

LOL

Macboy