Re: Need help with HDD issue on Dell Inspirion 5160


"steveo" <gnsemail@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1148701293.947074.24770@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

S.Lewis wrote:
"steveo" <gnsemail@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
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(snip)

I also thought I might be able to use the USB drive to format the new
HDD since the system won't recognize it and a good format might be the
solution.

I used the sys.com command to copy the operating files to my USB drive,
and also copied a few other goodies on there. I made sure that in the
BIOS "USB Mass Storage" was an option to boot from, and moved it to
first in the sequence.

It didn't work.

I checked that msdos.sys, io.sys, autoexec.bat (I modified it), and
config.sys (also modified) are all on there. When I used sys.com, it
indicated that it had marked sector 0 as bootable (or something to that
effect).

Am I doing something wrong, or is this not possible, or is this just
some evil demon tormenting me?

Advice appreciated!

steveo


I've made a key bootable manually (the hard way, I'm told). The quickest
way is to use a utility like this:

http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2004/10/utility_to_make_usb_flash_driv.html

You could use it to fdisk the new drive merely to see if you can access
it
among other things.

I tried the HP thing, but I wasn't able to successfully boot all the
way. The HP tool is a linux shell. It got stuck after the initial
image load. I pulled the key and it started loading again, but it was
unable to sucessfully load completely.

Can you share how you made yours manually? Was it a Windows based boot
disk?

Thanks--

steveo


It's been a while, and I admittedly did it the hard way. My chronological
order may be wrong. With the key plugged in the front USB, I booted into
BIOS and disabled all bootable drives other than the floppy. With the key
still plugged I booted to a Win95 boot disk (that contained sys.com) and ran
fdisk which recognized the full capacity of the key. I created a primary DOS
partition and then formatted it FAT16. I then copied over the contents of
the floppy to the key.

I was doing it more for giggles than necessity, and because it worked I
didn't make notes. Therefore the above may not be entirely correct.

I did post the step-by-step in this ng and was informed that I was an idiot
because there were (2) utilities out there (HP being one) that would easily
do the same thing. (g) I agreed and thought at that time I'd use a utility
next time.


Stew


.

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