Can't write to C drive 4

[bobbster2000]

Whenever I turn on my pc, I get a message saying "Can't write to drive C, may have bad sectors or files may be missing." It then does a scan disk and doesn't come up with any errors. Then, when windows opens up, as soon as I touch my mouse or any key on the keyboard, the screen turns blue. It tells me that "Can't write to C drive, may have bad sectors or missing files. Do a through scan disk."
I've done the through scan disk over and over again but it never finds any errors. Now when I turn on my pc it automatically opens up in safe mode and still gives me the same error messages. Can any one please advise me on what I can do to restore my computer?

 

[ramani]

Hi
Just start in DOS mode.. meaning to reach C: prompt while startup. Then see in the root directory as well as WINDOWS directory that all files are not write protected. You can see that with the command.. ATTRIB *.* [enter]
IF "R" attribute show up, then you can tun them off with..
ATTRIB -R *.*/s

If the drive is having a problem, then, you can test that by.. COPT myFile.txt to myFile1.txt. Do this with a fairly large size file and then delete that.

I ll probability, you must have a virus infection. You can clean that with a scanner download. ramani :-9
(Subramanian.G),FoxAcc, ramani_g@yahoo.com

 

[sharper]

You have one of two problems, by the sounds of it:

1. Your Hard Drive is faulty. If you can boot into an os it isn't totally dead so you may be able to recover data. Get a new HDD and try and clone the old drive onto the new drive (use something like ghost). If this fails, set up a new OS on the new HDD and set the old drive as a slave. Then you can boot into the new OS and copy ant good data from the old drive.

2. (this is more unlikly) You have a virus which is interfering with disk writes by the OS. Get hold of a boot disk from a Virus software vendor (You may need to create one from a known clean machine) This may solve your problem. If you find no virus on your HDD than I would suggest running fdisk (after booting from a floppy), remove all partitions, recreate a Primary DOS partition, reboot and then format. This will of course remove all data from the drive so take a backup if you can. (When you run scandisk let it do a full scan).

Hope this helps

 

[bobbster2000]

Thanks for the help everybody. I appreciate it. I have a new hard drive but I need to know how to clone or "ghost" the data from my C drive to my D? I'm kinda new to this so please bare with me. I've also done a virus scan with Norton and Mcafee and come up with nothing but maybe I still do have a virus. Where do I get a scanner download? As soon as I get I'm going to see if any of my files are write protected.

 

[lgebhart]

Free online virus scan:

http://housecall.antivirus.com/housecall/start_corp.asp

ggebhart@clover.net
I hope I never get too old or arrogant to learn something new!

 

[bobbster2000]

Thanks a lot lgebhart. But my computer automaticaly opens in safe mode and I'm not able to use my mouse. I can open Internet explorer without my mouse but I haven't figured out how to get to the url section without it.

 

[sharper]

bobbster...

If you can get your hands on a copy of ghost do this:
Put Ghost.exe and ghost.env on bootable floppy (use "format.com a: /u/q/s" without quotes from dos prompt to make bootable blank disk then copy ghost files onto it.)
now connect both hard drives, best to use primary master for the drive with data on it and secondary master for your new drive. Don't bother with cdrom drive for the moment. If your BIOS picks up both drive and you've booted from your ghost floppy then your're nearly there...
Run ghost.exe and select (lets see if I can remember this..) copy disk (top item in menu) then choose Local then disk to disk (I think) (my god this advice is a bit shakey ) It should then as you to select source drive then destination drive. The first of the two will be your old drive (If is was set to PRIMARY MASTER). Just accept everything and it should start copying. Be careful because ghost doesn't care if you try to copy a new drive (blank) onto a drive with data on it. Just make sure you're copying the right drive (your drives are probably different sizes so you can check if you are doing it right). Leave this for a while and then you can take out the old drive, move the new drive to Primary master and reboot all should be well.. That's if all of your drive is readable, because if it isn't then ghost may not work at all (he tells you this right at he end of course ) ) I'd probably do a fresh install onto the new drive (take out your old drive, leave your cdrom where it was, and put new drive in as pri master, then boot from win98 cd and follow instructions) and then put the old drive back in as, say, secondary slave, and just copy anything you need.

ahhhh, my fingers are now sore..

sharper

Please let Tek-Tip members know it thier posts are helpful.

 

[ceh4702]

Maxtor had some software you could download from their site called EZ-Drive or something similar, that had a utility to copy one drive to the next. Copies it in a couple of minutes. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[JohnS9051]

Are you sure that the C: drive isn't full?

I am assuming you have Win98.
If you can get to My Computer from the Start menu in Safe Mode, use the arrow keys to highlight C: drive.

Then press ALT+F and use the arrow keys to highlight Properties and press ENTER.

If you are low on disk free space then press ALT+D to open Disk Cleanup. You can navigate the Disk Cleanup window using the arrow keys and the Tab key.

Remove any temporary files to free up enough space for you to get Windows to open in Normal Mode.

Then you can copy your hard drive to a larger one using one of the drive copy utilities.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

John