Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.os.msdos.misc:25111 comp.os.386bsd.questions:12091 Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!uknet!festival!edcogsci!richard From: richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) Subject: MS-DOS can't see disk, BSD can Message-ID: <Cu2D5v.GEr@cogsci.ed.ac.uk> Organization: HCRC, University of Edinburgh Date: Fri, 5 Aug 1994 13:22:42 GMT Lines: 32 Can anyone suggest why MSDOS would be unable to access a disk, in the following sense: - fdisk hangs for about 30 seconds, then says "unable to access disk 2" (disk 1 and 3 are fine) - os-bs hanges for about a minute, then exits with a message "can't read partition table". The disk is a Maxtor 200Mb IDE disk. Disk 1 is a Rodime 200 Mb IDE. Disk 3 is a SCSI disk - it doesn't make any difference whether it's connected. The machine is a 386DX EISA, with Fahrenheit VA graphics card, Apaptec 1542 SCSI adaptor (+ Toshiba CDROM), and SoundBlaster. FreeBSD and NetBSD see the disk with no problem. It doesn't seem to make any difference whether or not there's a DOS partition on the disk. I've tried MSDOS versions 6.2, 6.0 and 4 and they all have the problem. The disk used to be visible to MSDOS, but I've added and changed the hardware somewhat since then. (I didn't try to access this disk from MSDOS for about a year.) What might MSDOS be trying to do that doesn't work, when the disk appears fine to BSD? Are there any diagnostic programs available that might help? -- Richard -- Richard Tobin, HCRC, Edinburgh University R.Tobin@ed.ac.uk Ooooh! I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.