Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!mcvax!unido!unimuc!billp From: billp@unimuc.UUCP (Bill Potter) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: IBM/PC-AT doesn't boot anymore -- HELP Message-ID: <119@unimuc.UUCP> Date: Tue, 7-Jul-87 13:01:38 EDT Article-I.D.: unimuc.119 Posted: Tue Jul 7 13:01:38 1987 Date-Received: Sat, 11-Jul-87 01:28:36 EDT References: <119@bernina.UUCP> Organization: UniSoft GmbH Lines: 46 It could be that the boot sectors got zapped, this happened to me with my XT a couple of times for no apparent reason. Assuming that you can still boot the system from a floppy do the following. 1: Boot from the floopy 2: Do a chkdsk to check the intergrity of the disk 3: If all is ok so far then make a backup of everthing (Oh dear all those diskettes :-) . In your situation this is good idea anyway. 4: Format your disk. This is the only way you have got at the moment of getting the bootstrap onto the disk. DON'T FORGET the /S . 5: Check that the disk boots, it will comes up asking for the date and time and have an awful American keyboard which will give you lots of fun :-( . 6: Restore everything. 7: Now comes the fun part, you've just spend x hours getting here and you never want to do this again so now use the debugger or write a program to read sectors 1 & 2 of cylinder 0, head 0. Transfer the date read into the form of an array initialisation. e.g. boot_sect[1024] = { 0x00 0x01 ..... 0x?? }; And write a program to write the data to sectors 1 & 2 of cylinder 1, head 0. Call this program restboot or something like that. Now whenever you loose your bootstrap all you need to do is run restboot and of you go again. All this does not however answer the question as to why DOS at random intervals trashes the bootstrap. I would mail you the program except I've got no connection from my IBM to the NET at the moment. Mail me if you need more help. bill potter -- ==================================================================== mit freundlichen Gruessen unisoft gmbh arabellastr. 30 D-8000 Muenchen 81 (Munich to you non-German speakers) Bundesrepublik Deutschland (West Germany, see above) Int.-49-(0)89-9269080 ====================================================================