*BSD News Article 69769


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From: medrecjm@crl.com (John Mosser)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: "Error: C:0 H:0 S:16" fixed!
Date: 30 May 1996 07:54:51 -0700
Organization: the brink
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <4okcrr$hfu@crl.crl.com>
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What a battle! After resorting to desparate shotgunning, I finally was able
to get past this point upon trying to boot on boot.flp diskette.

My system is a WYSE controller with a Western Digital WDAC2540H hard drive.

After initially booting successfully with the boot.flp diskette and setting
up partitioning parameters, etc., all looked well and good, then....
somebody/something hit me from behind! I saw sky, earth, then blackness - 
when I awoke, I had the dreaded "Error: C:0 H:0 S:16"!

I tried pfdisk, bootinst, ide_conf, restorrb, osbs, praying, uncontrollable
sobbing - couldn't recover. 

Went to Western Digital's web site (www.wdc.com) and downloaded wd_clear, 
and wrote all zeros to everywhere on the disk - that fixed it - after that
I could boot again on boot.flp diskette. I won't offer an explaination *why*
that fixed it, but it did.

Now I'll continue my freebsd quest - or maybe I'll just develope a cure for
cancer - whichever takes up less of my time ;)

John