#NT Help!
20 messages in this thread
Help! Sometime today, something seems to have happened to my DOS boot file.
When I reboot and the NT boot menu appears and I choose MS-DOS I get the
following error:
I/O error accessing boot sector file
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\\BOOTSECT.DOS
Selecting NT works fine and if I boot to a floppy I can access my C: drive so
hopefully it's nothing
too serious. I'm working on a couple of projects that both need to be finished
by Thursday and without a lot of screwing around to make a boot floppy – I
can't access any of my SCSI stuff or the PAR. I can't find anything in the NT
manuals that says anything about this error.
Any ideas? I have to get this fixed ASAP.
DM
David,
It's going to be hard to trouble shoot without knowing what you have done with
hardware/software in the last day or so.
My first thought is if your SCSI chain is not properly terminated. The NT
operating system takes a good look at your system hardware before booting, I
can speak from experience, I had SCSI problems last week (on Friday the 13th)
and I was very suspicious of a virus. The problem ended up being improper
termination and the system did not want to boot to NTFS until I corrected the
problem.
-Mike
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHHA8DB34
Thanks anyway Mike but it was nothing to do with the SCSI hardware. I've got it
all fixed and believe everyone may want to have info on this. Here goes:
When using NT with a FAT partition (such as if you're using dual boot) a file
called BOOTSECT.DOS is created in C:\
Basically this file is your boot sector which contains hardware specific data
that allows you to boot your FAT formatted drive. On two machines that I have
this file is not hidden or read only or system. It can simply be deleted.
Oops.
Reinstalling NT and selecting repair (even if check boot files is selected)
will not replace the file. Evidently the repair program only checks to see if
the system files are there. The trick is to SYS your C: using a boot floppy.
You need to use the same DOS version. You then reinstall NT and select repair
and this time it will see that the files are missing and replace them, along
with the BOOTSECT.DOS file. I used the emergency repair disk and everything was
back to normal. Scary.
I haven't tried hiding the file but I will and see what happens. For now I have
put a copy of it on a floppy though.
DM
Dave,
Wow! Kinda scary. I'm not using a FAT, just NTFS so I haven't even seen that
file, sure a good one to file away in the old database.
Glad to see ya up and going again.
-Mike
!^NavFont01F0007MGHHG8AAA7A
>> Glad to see ya up and going again.
Thanks Mike. Mee too!
DM
Hi Dave,
I have heard that if you are running DOS/NT dual boot, then you don't want to
run any utilities such as Norton Disk Doctor that looks for file allocation
errors and corrects them. If allowed to correct, it can screw things up. Is
this a possibility?
-tyler
See my reply to Mike morgan for what it was. I will keep in mind the bit about
Disk doctor though. How about Speeddisk or MS defrag? How about checkdsk /f?
Anyone got any more info on this?
DM
Dave,
>> How about Speeddisk or MS defrag?
Using NT and the FAT, I often run scandisk and defrag, (from a DOS boot),
without any problems at all.
John
John,
When I run Dos 6.22 defrag I loose my profile and have to reconfigure again.
Wonder what is different about your system?
Regards…………Rick – Technical Animations
Rick,
>> Wonder what is different about your system?
'No idea. I do this regularly on 3 computers running NT. I'd GO WINNT and see
if someone knows the answer.
John
John,
Are you using a dual boot setup?
Regards………….Rick – Technical Animations
Rick,
>> Are you using a dual boot setup?
Actually; a triple boot setup…Win NT, MS DOS, and Win 95.
John
BTW; if you ever check out MS Plus for Win95, take a look at the pinball
game…I swear the pinball table looks like it was created in 3D Studio.
'Anyone know?
John
>> Using NT and the FAT, I often run scandisk and defrag, (from a DOS boot),
without any >> problems at all.
Good to know that this works ok. Figures that it should. Thanks for the info.
DM
Dave:
>> How about Speeddisk or MS defrag? How about checkdsk /f?
Checkdsk, defrag, and scandisk are all fine for drives with long file names
under NT. Norton's speedisk (SD) and directory sort (DS) will trash the long
file names, but aside from that work fine.
Greg Pyros
>>Checkdsk, defrag, and scandisk are all fine for drives with long file names
under NT.
Thanks Greg. That's good to hear. I'm really liking NT so far. Aside from this
one little problem it's been very nice. Have you used Speed Razor NT yet? Does
it work with the PAR ok? I can't wait to have everything running under NT. I
think it's will be a much more productive environment.
DM
Dave,
I have a dual boot system. When I run Dos 6.22 Defrag I lose my Profile. When I
start NT 3.51 I get the message, "Your profile cannot be loaded. A copy of your
default profile will be loaded instead." I have to reconfigure NT with my
personal preferences and all is well again. There is a program that will defrag
a NT system, but it sells for $150, it' called Diskeeper by Executive Software.
Their fragmentation analyser is in lib 4 of the 'NTWORK forum, it has all data
to contact them. This software will work on a NTFS drive, you would want to
confirm that it works on a FAT drive before you buy.
It seem that I read that chkdsk will not run while is NT is up, but will run it
after you shutdown or before it boots up the next time, something like that.
Again they have the complete answer in the NTWORK forum.
Regards………….Rick – Technical Animations
Dave,
You might try the "NTWORK" forum, its sponsored by the Windows NT magazine.
They are not affiliated with Microsoft and should give you a pretty fast
response.
Regards……………Rick – Technical Animations
Thanks for info on NTWORK
DM
Dave;
>> I/O error accessing boot sector file
Glad you are back up and running.
I had a similar problem after using the NT Disk Manager. It said I needed to
at a header at the beginning of the Hard Disk so I could access it in the
future. I said "OK", and then got this error the next time I attempted to
boot. I was not as fortunate as you, and needed to reinstall NT, and the one
other application I had on the HD. I was unable to access even NT.
Dennis
>> I said "OK"
Well, I'll be sure and cancel if I ever see that message. 🙂 Thanks for the
info.
DM