01-02-2003 14:49									#1
	Methinks my computer has gone to "See Jesus" for the last time... Remove this text

...After 7 years of this, I'm tired and can't take much more of it...

My basic specs: Double-boot system
40 GB drive sporting WinXP Pro; used as main drive; installed in December; is the primary boot drive
120 GB drive sporting Win98SE; used as data drive; installed sometime early last year or year before, great deal too ($150USD for a drive worth $400USD at the time, price-tagging error at BestBuy )
700Mhz Athelon

Last night, while using the Win98SE drive, Norton AV '03 warned me that both the Master Boot Record and Boot Record had been "altered" and asked me what to do. 1) Do nothing as changes were expected, 2) Restore a previous record as changes were unexpected or 3) Ignore the problem and hope it goes away (I don't remember what the third option was). I picked the second option, since in my experiance only naughty things change the Boot Records and attract the attention of my AntiVirus software at the same time.

Friday afternoon when I came home, I turned my computer back on...the WinXP Pro drive was hosed. Wouldn't even boot.

After fighting with it for 45 minutes or so, finally got it to boot off the Win98SE drive so I could scan the other drive for viruses...NAV2003 couldn't even scan the 40GB drive. It was hosed. My stepdad, who's worked with computers longer than I've been alive (me=22 in April) couldn't make much headway into solving the problem either. Says he might try something later this weekend, but doubts it will work since the other things we tried didn't do anything...other than irritate us further.

Win98 has been a pain in the arse forever too, though the SE updates improved things a good bit. But I installed WinXP to get relief from Winblows98. *Sigh*



I suppose this is a good thing to have happen. While the 40GB WinXP drive is relatively new and doesn't have much of value on it, the 120 GB Win98SE drive is loaded with gajillions of files (somewhere over 400,000 or so equaling 75GB). Some of that stuff has followed me from as far back as Winblows 3.0 or earlier, though most of the really ancient stuff is circa Win95. 1000+ mp3's, almost 100 games plus God-knows-how-many addon files and mods, documents, programs, earlier versions of programs that have since been fukkered-up (KaZaA 2.0 vs. earlier versions anyone?). Porn? Well, let's just say I'll live...with the pain of losing just over 30GB or 25,000+ files of it collected since 1998 (movies, pics, lists, websites). <-- That's perhaps the worst cleanup job I face if I so choose since most of it is just crap that I'm too lazy to sort through, and at 25,000+ files, you'd be a little put-off by the thought of organizing that much too... At most I'd say only 5 to 10 GB of it is worth anything to me. It's gay porn before anyone asks...and no assinine homophobic comments either.

Against 400,000+ files (75GB) of stuff, I just don't know how best to deal with all of it. I'm stand to lose A LOT of little treasures: hard-to-find old games; songs that were a b*tch to track down (Orlando di Lasso's "Bon Jour, Et Puis Quelle Nouvelle?" circa 1500's); really good quality "adult" material that's not the same old crap one might find over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over...; all manner of mods for games that I'd never be able to find again since they're so obscure (the mods not the games); and God-knows-what-else. Sure, ya'll might advise me to just make backups of my data, but here's the problem with that plan: there's so much of it, and some of it is so old, and some of it has been touched by viruses in the past, and some of it has gotten corrupted in the past, and there's only so many times the registry checker can scan and fix a problem and viruses NAV2003 can find...it's just TOO DAUNTING a task to figure out how much of it is really worth dealing with any more.

My plan, if my stepdad can't get things working again, is to track down certain mp3s, documents, addresses (email and web), and a few previous versions of programs I use that are still good, burn them onto a few CDs, format both drives and reinstall WinXP Pro on the 40 again and Win98SE on the 120, and start anew.



I've known this day would come since 1996 when I had my first computer crash. Old stuff corrupted and new stuff infected. Cleaned up my computer. Rinse, wash, repeat for 7 years.

*Sigh...*

And it'll be a cold day in hell before I switch to a Mac...so don't waste your time even suggesting it.

Last edited by DRoseDARs on 01-02-2003 at 15:00

	01-02-2003 14:58									#2
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Would buying another 120 gig drive and imaging the old one be entirely out of the question?

	01-02-2003 15:06									#3
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quote: Originally posted by The Mad Monk Would buying another 120 gig drive and imaging the old one be entirely out of the question?

That only shifts the problem to the new drive. All 400,000+ files would still present the problem of old hidden problems that neither the registry checker nor NAV2003 would notice or fix. There's SO MUCH to sift through, I just don't think I could handle it at this point. If there weren't the volume of data, then that option might be feasible, but truth is I still haven't managed to fill the 120GB drive in the year or two I've had it, plus a brand-spanking new 40GB that's largely empty except for WinXP...another 120 seems overkill, even for me. But thanks for the suggestion.

	01-02-2003 15:38									#4
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http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/

	01-02-2003 15:45									#5
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As long as the FAT on your 120GB HDD isn't wiped, you can get all the stuff back. I assume it is FAT32, considering you are using Windows 98? So just find another W98 box and slap your drive in.

	01-02-2003 15:51									#6
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My stepdad believes the FAT on the WinXP drive has gone kablooey. Picked up SOME nasty virus. But this is pretty much the preverbial "straw that broke the camel's back." I've needed to clean up my files for a long time, so now seems as good a time as any.

We'll see what happens this weekend...

	01-02-2003 15:53									#7
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quote: Originally posted by Ari Rahikkala http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/76201/gpart/

I'll take a closer look at this link later, as it's 3 in the morning where I am, so thanks in advance.

	01-02-2003 15:55									#8
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quote: Originally posted by Urban Ranger As long as the FAT on your 120GB HDD isn't wiped, you can get all the stuff back. I assume it is FAT32, considering you are using Windows 98? So just find another W98 box and slap your drive in.

We have good copies of WinXP Pro and Winblows98 Second Edition, so that isn't a problem. It's what's one the seperate drives with them that worry me. Thanks though.

	01-02-2003 16:40									#9
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Hm... I just noticed that there's no win32 version of GPart. This might be a problem, since I do not know of any other program that could be used for fixing broken partition tables (such a thing might well exist, I just haven't heard of it). However, actually it is not, since I just noticed I had completely misunderstood your post. I'll try to condense your current situation into a few sentences to make sure we're on the same wavelength (correct me if I'm wrong at any part)...

NAV overwrote the MBR of your Win98SE drive, making your computer unbootable. With some work you were able to boot Win98 but not WinXP. However, you aren't able to access your WinXP drive from Win98 in any way now.

	01-02-2003 16:42									#10
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Maybe your 40GB drive runs NTFS and that's why it couldn't be scanned from inside Win98.

From what you've described it sounds like your boot record just got FUBARed, and you managed to boot into Win98, and since Win98 can't read NTFS systems (what WinXP uses by default, IIRC), you couldn't scan your 40GB drive.

All you need to do is tidy up the bootrecord. Use your Windows XP CDROM to access the recovery console, use the prompts and onscreen help from there to detect other windows versions and rebuild your bootrecord.

	01-02-2003 16:45									#11
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It all so sounds simple when Asher says it