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NTFS or FAT32 when booting to DOS

m8E

By m8E
in Windows XP

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m8E

m8E

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Using XP Pro, When booting to DOS using a floppy disk would it be better to have an NTFS or FAT32 system for recognising my external Iomega Zip 750 drive in DOS?

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m8E

m8E

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Thanks for your reply Win2k3EE, I'm not sure but I think that my Windows XP Pro uses NTFS when in ordinary use, but only FAT32 when in DOS, does that sound right or completely wrong! :unsure:

At the moment when I reboot my computer to DOS and try to locate my External Zip 750 drive it isn't getting recognised. Presently my external zip drive is E:\ and is always detectable when ordinarily using my computer, but when rebooting in DOS my zip drive is not recognised, neither is my C:\ (hard drive) or any other drive except A:\ and B:\ (and I don't even use B:\) so can you or anyone out there advise me how I can locate my E:\ (external zip drive) whilst booted into DOS? :unsure:

Thanks

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m8E

m8E

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Hi BrandonS_Mil, troubleshooting well sort of, I need to find my E:\ (where my external Iomega Zip 750 Drive is located) in DOS so that the SpinRite 6.0 software that I have can locate it and perform disk recovery on some zip 750 disks.

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m8E

m8E

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Hi dman, thanks for the link I may well need it soon! When you say that a zip drive needs usb drivers loaded in order to be recognised do you mean that for DOS or for ordinary computer use? When in ordinary use my computer always recognises the E:\ where the external zip 750 drive is located.

The need for booting to DOS to run SpinRite 6.0 is because the SpinRite software is not yet recognising my external zip 750 drive E:\ and so after having been in touch with the makers of the software they said:

"After booting to DOS, switch to your Iomega directory. While in the Iomega directory type the standard Zip "Guest" command. Just enter the command: GUEST at the command line prompt. You should see the command talking about finding a drive letter for your drive .... and then it should tell you what it is. Once that's happened, SpinRite will run on the drive after inserting a cartridge into the drive."

So after having tried and failed to switch to the Iomega directory in DOS things have come to a stop because the only things that are getting recognised in DOS at the moment are A:\ and B:\

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dman

dman

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OK, easiest thing to do is put your zip "guest.exe' on a cd-rom (or the boot floppy if it fits). This you will be able to access form a dos boot (you could even make the cd bootable). Then run zip guest from there and it should find zip drive.

What are you trying to do, recover deleted files or fix corrupted disk?

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m8E

m8E

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Hi dman,

When you say zip "guest.exe' are you referring to the files which I already have saved on my zip disk?

Also are you saying that if I put my files from my zip disk onto a cd rom and then put the cd rom into my cd drive that DOS should then be able to detect the cd rom? I will check out a cd to see. dman as you can tell your last post had one or two things which I didn't properly understand but I am trying because I have to.

As for what I am trying to achieve, I am trying to recover files from two corrupted zip 750 disk which SpinRite is supposed to be able to recover in situations like this, the trouble at the moment is being able to recognise the zip drive in DOS :}

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jaclaz

jaclaz

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I think you are making some confusion, trying to do EVERYTHING at once.

Booting from a DOS (or windows 9x) boot disk can you see your external drive with a GOOD, KNOWN WORKING Zip 750 disks, FORMATTED as FAT16?

I would say no, as you need to make a "special" bootdisk, USB enabled (if your ZIP 750 is USB):

http://www.stefan2000.com/usbstorage/

http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DO...r_boot_disk.ZIP

Read here also:

http://www.bootdisk.com/usb.htm

So, first try to achieve the above, THEN, if it works, add Spinrite to your boot disk.

Spinrite does NOT need any filesystem driver (like sysinternals NTFSDOS or the Datapol NTFS4DOS) as it reads the disk directly.

Personally, before going that way, if the problem is to recover files from the damaged ZIP disks, I would try before Photorec (the accompanying apllication of TESTDISK):

http://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.html

(latest releases are capable of recovering almost any file)

In ANY case, BEFORE ANY recovery attempt, I would do an image (or better, two) of the disks with utilities like:

http://www.roadkil.net/DiskImg.html

http://www.stud.uni-hannover.de/user/73174/RawDisk/

So if the Recovery gets messed up, you still have a copy of the original data to try another recovery utility.

jaclaz

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dman

dman

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The zip "guest.exe" is the program that is used to access the zip drive without installing the drivers on your computer. Like the name implies, it is used when you are guest on computer and need to access your zip drive. You boot from floppy or cd and run guest.exe to get your zip recognized. Try it with a good zip disk and see if you can access it. If you can you should be able to put in your bad disk and run spinrite on it.

like jclaz says, make images of the disk first so you have safety net if recovery attempts fail. He also is correct that TESTDISK will fix most problems, but it is difficult program for beginner.

If this is still unclear and your data is very valuable to you I would suggest taking it to a professional for data recovery.

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m8E

m8E

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Hi jaclaz thanks for all the advice and links, I went to those websites and downloaded them all. When trying to use the downloads the only ones I found that worked on my computer were PHOTOREC and TESTDISK. The other downloads either couldn't recognise my zip drive or they did not hang around any longer that about 0.5 of a second after starting them for me to even use!

TESTDISK did analyse my zip disk in a separate DOS style window and it did find the files which I am trying to recover but I still could not find a way of directly accessing the files on the disk or copying them, so even though I could see my files in the TESTDISK window and I could move around within the window to locate each file I could not access them.

After TESTDISK had finished analysing I Saved and then Loaded but this did not provide any access to my files on my zip disk.

I did use PHOTOREC which produced very similar results to TESTDISK but with only photo files and the like being found.

Hi dman, thanks for that advice, I have booted to DOS using a floppy disk, as usual A:\ came up first of all and then I typed in "guest.exe" whilst a good zip disk was in my zip drive, the response which kept coming up is "Bad command or file name"

(btw, is there a proper way to exit DOS to restart my computer?)

The SpinRite software which I have is still no closer to be used, so that I don't feel as though I am missing something obvious can someone tell me if there is a standard way in which SpinRite is supposed to be used from a floppy disk?

I feel that I am getting closer to recovering my files after the partial success of TESTDISK, this has given me hope, but because I still cannot access my files I am wondering if I have used TESTDISK properly, can someone let me know if they think that my use of TESTDISK so far is good or not so I can develop my use of it further.

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dman

dman

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Hi dman, thanks for that advice, I have booted to DOS using a floppy disk, as usual A:\ came up first of all and then I typed in "guest.exe" whilst a good zip disk was in my zip drive, the response which kept coming up is "Bad command or file name"
arrrggh m8e, shiver me timbers.

you have to copy "guest.exe" on to the floppy, or burn it to a cdrom that you can then access from dos boot. The "bad command or file name" means that guest.exe is not on the disk or in the path, you have to put it there.

this part of spinrite instructions are messing you up

"After booting to DOS, switch to your Iomega directory.

They are assuming you are using fat32 and can see your hard disk from dos boot, which you can not because you are using NTFS. You need to find guest.exe in program files\iomega or wherever it is and copy it to the boot floppy, or if it doesn't fit burn it to a cdrom and be sure to boot "with cdrom support" from floppy. I am assuming that there is command line program forspinrite since they have you in dos. You will need this program on your floppy or cdrom as well.

Hope this is clear enough.

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BrandonS_Mil

BrandonS_Mil

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I know this late in the game it might be rhetorical to ask, but...

Do you have a windows based data recovery program.... since you can easily access the Zip drive in windows, use a recovery tool then....

I had a Zip 100 Parallel port drive and I ran into a similar problem. I was able to use windows to scan the damaged disk; unfortunately my disk was too damaged for recovery.

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m8E

m8E

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I have a boot to DOS floppy disk which has now got ‘guest.exe’ and ‘spinrite’ on it too. Booting my computer using this floppy disk starts up in DOS and brings up A:\ as usual, then I type in ‘guest.exe’ or just ‘guest’ and the command is recognised but this comes up:

Iomega Guest Driver Version 8.5

Finding a drive letter for your Iomega drive…..

No Drive letters were added.

I was a bit disappointed after it had not found or added my zip drive, the A:\ was still there afterwards so I typed in ‘spinrite.exe’ and spinrite started up okay, but ‘guest.exe’ didn’t find or add my zip drive even with a good zip disk in it.

So in DOS my computer still only finds my A:\ (which is my floppy drive) and B:\ (which is a mystery to me because I don’t know of or use a B:\ anywhere on my computer!), other than that there are no other drives which are found in DOS in my computer, not even my hard drive is found.

However, with ‘guest.exe’ now being used maybe there is a way to find my zip drive in DOS perhaps.

BrandonS_Mil thanks for your suggestion, I will check that out.

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