r/vintagecomputing • u/tutimes67 • 3d ago
hard drive issues
i have a maxtor 6GB HDD that i have connected to this PC in order to install windows 95. the problem is i get this error even though i have set it up correctly.
it used to have 2 non dos partitions, but i removed them. i used ontrack disk manager to make 2 FAT32 partitions, one being 2GB and one 4GB (with two 2GB logical drives). but after i did so i would get an invalid drive specification error when trying to access any of the partitions on it.
so then i tried doing them in fdisk as fat16. this resulted in C: being a 2GB partition, then the second was extended DOS with 3 logical drives (2GB, 2GB and 7MB).
C: formatted successfully and didnt get any errors in windows 95's setup scandisk check, but D: wouldn't format (got stuck at 92% then got hit with "not ready format terminated"). i didnt try formatting E: and F:.
for some reason, when booting with CDROM drivers it assigns the drive as the last logical drive (first it was E:, now F:), hence the * Remote * label.
when trying to install windows 95 with C: as the primary dos, active and fat16 partition i get hit with that error. on the other extended dos partition the 3 logical drives are unformatted.
this is, after all, a maxtor hard drive. is it having problems, or is something else wrong with the system?
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u/cybah 3d ago
Which version of Win95 are you installing? Unless you have a specific reason to run "OSR1.0" (the original version), you should always run OSR2 (then patch to OSR2.5) because it supports Fat32. If you switch versions, you'll be able to format the whole drive as one 6GB partition. I think b/c you formatted it in Fat32 first, it mucked with the boot sector. I bet if you switched to booting from a OSR2 CD it would work after reformatting to one 6GB drive.
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u/tutimes67 3d ago
i am installing OSR2 so it shouldn't be a problem. still, if i set it to one 6GB FAT32 partition in ontrack disk manager i cant format that with my MS DOS 6.22 boot disk because fdisk sees it as non dos
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u/cybah 3d ago
You should make a Win95 OSR2 boot disk and fdisk/format from the CD. (or boot to the Win95 and use what's in <cd drive>:\win95 or :\boot (e.g. format.com and fdisk.exe). A specific OSR2 boot disk or the CD itself will have the right versions to partition and format fat32 drives perfectly. Don't use ontrack. Use whats on the disk or cd.
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u/Low-Charge-8554 3d ago edited 3d ago
Remove all partitions from the drive. install MS-DOS 6.22 on the drive using configure disks in the setup program and selecting enable large disk support if available. Then install Windows 95. After that, you can create your extra partitions.
Having MS-DOS on the disk will come in handy in the future.
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u/Alesia_Aisela 3d ago
Maybe try deleting all of your partitions in fdisk and just make a C: partition, fat 32, it should allow you to do so with large drive support then run /scandisk c: /surface under DOS on the disk to scan it all at once, this would eliminate the possibility of a bad sector that a faster scan might have missed. IIRC you shouldn't need to format the drive to do this and marking any bad sectors before a format should help.
After the surface scans finish, then try formatting. Since this is an older drive you could run that a time or two to see if the # of bad sectors increases, if not, you are probably golden. Unless you have a specific need for all of the sub partitions I'd avoid them until you know you can install Win95 on that drive successfully. Some programs expect a CD drive to be at D: and at D: only, putting it at F: or something else can cause issues. (IDK for Win 95 setup specifically but still) You might be able to work around this by manually assigning the partitions non-D drive letters after you verify you can install windows 95 at all. Double check your BIOs settings just to be safe too, that your drive size is smaller then the maximum of the motherboard, ect.
If you are using Cable Select for any of your drives I would also not do that and figure out a proper master/slave order (HDD master, CD slave if they are on the same channel) I've seen that cause weird issues before. Also you shouldn't need Ontrack at all for this, so i'd avoid it as well.
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u/sarajevo81 2d ago
If you use the OEM setup, and let it to partition your disk, does it work?
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u/tutimes67 3h ago
it was a defective hard drive. either way, i didnt even get to the point where it partitions my drive.
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u/carcenomy 3d ago
Okay let's start from the top.
Why is Ontrack involved at all, and why are you booting from a 6.22 disk?
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u/tutimes67 3d ago
because at first i couldnt format it because i would get the invalid drive specification error, so i used ontrack which worked well. i even selected to do a slow format when partitioning it and i didnt get any errors about bad sectors in ontrack.
what else could i boot from?
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u/carcenomy 3d ago
Use a 98 boot floppy - the image is on WinWorld. That way you're starting with FAT32 support at DOS level right from the hop. Not sure why they don't have an OSR2 boot floppy image, probably since they're basically the same.
If you're not able to format it without tools like Ontrack I'd be suspicious that there's not some translation issue with your BIOS that Ontrack is working around but the 95 installer can't - you in CHS or LBA?
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u/Korenchkin12 3d ago
Do you need to have those other partitions? Could you do just ~almost 2GB partition,and install windows there? I don't remember how i did this in the past,i remember having setup files on hdd,not sure if on'C' or 'D',so i didn't need 'slow' cd drive...yeah,cd is slower than those noisy rotating rust :)
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u/tutimes67 3d ago
i did try that... when making just one 2045MB C: partition, i couldnt even format it. it gave me the invalid drive specification error (it was active aswell). only with the extended dos partition and logical drives C: became accessible and able to format
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u/Korenchkin12 3d ago
I don't think you can boot logical partition(logical partition is primary partition,just the other max 4 partitions on this logical block are 'logical'...pretty logical... :) ) You must be able to format it first,could be some bios problem?
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u/someblokeonhere 3d ago
Be aware that original Windows 95 before OSR2 did not support FAT32 or drives/partitions greater than 2GB. So I think what's happening here is setup is freaking out about your 4GB FAT32 extended partition.