No accessible disk drives with NetWare partition *** Highly Urgent ***

[cyberdyne]

Hi All !


I am facing a wierd problem and looking for a solution in utmost urgency.

I have a Novell 3.12 server with the patches installed.
It is running very fine with current server hardware i.e Intel PIII-1.2GHz CPU, 128 MB SDARM, 40GB Samsung Spinpoint IDE hard Disk, HIS make Intel 810E motherboard, Realtek chipset PCI 8029 card ( 10 MBPs). Everything is just fine.

I 3 days back got some new hardware consisting of
Intel 2.4 GHz CPU, 256MB DDR Memory, same Hard disk, Same LAN Card, Motherboard is HIS make VIA 533 FSB motherboard P4M266A/8235 chipset Model M50-46.

I connected the hard disk to this new hardware. Had to make changes in c:\server.312\Autoexec.ncf file to register more memory. and it was successfully added. LAN card is also installed with it's driver successfully. Even hard disk driver is successfully installed. Here I would like to mention that I am using old ISADISK.DSK driver to access 40 GB HDD partitions.I have 3 partitions viz. SYS, VOL1, VOl2. and a 2047 MB MS DOS Partition as C Drive.

I am getting error as below

" There are no accessible disk drives with NetWare partitions. Check to see that the needed disk drivers have been loaded, and that your disk drives are properly connected and powered on."

Also I remember that when I tried running Fdisk from DOS prompt I was shocked to see NON Dos partition size in negative, yes Negative -237 MB.

If any one has come across this problem the please tell me how to overcome this ? Any lead to problem solving would be highly appriciated.

Thanks a lot,

Waiting for prompt reply.

Apoorva Gala

 

[JockMullin]

Hi, Apoorva

It sounds like your new BIOS has interpreted the drive geometry (cyls/heads/sectors) differently from that used on the previous MB. The fact DOS cannot interpret the partition table means that ISADISK will also have problems.
My guess is the new BIOS interprets the drive with way more cyls than previously (and fewer heads/sectors).

Do you know the parameters the previous MB used on the drive? If so you could try entering them as a USER drive setup in the BIOS, rather than having the BIOS scan the drive automatically.

Also you could try using IDE.DSK and see if it is able to cope with the drive parameters. I normally use IDE.DSK for IDE drives because I have had problems with ISADISK on some large drives and slow performance (especially mounting volumes) on others.

Those are my thoughts, though hopefully others here will have further suggestions. Hope it helps.

Jock

 

[cyberdyne]

JockMullin,
Thanks for reply.

I have those parameters. This is a good idea. Actually i have running that server on old motherboard at the moment.
I will check it out and will report in this page. Any way in my old motherboard also hdd parameters are autodetected by motherboard. but I have ignored to see if they are same with new or not.

I tried with ide.dsk earlier when this 40 gb was installed first time. It couldn't detect the big partitions. So i used isadisk.dsk and since then it is working fine. Somehow ide.dsk didn't worked for me. Though I will check again.

regards

Apoorva

 

[JockMullin]

Hi, Apoorva

Re IDE.DSK, there was an updated version of that driver released under TID021858 to support current drive parameters. The 3.12 version is dated 9/2/94 6:13 pm and is 15850 bytes. AFAIK that is the latest release.

Jock

 

[JockMullin]

Hi again

Further to my last, see the FAQ in this forum re large IDE drives under Novell 3. It discusses yet another set of drivers.

Jock

 

[cyberdyne]

JokeMullin ! Thanks a lot and a bunch of flowers for you.

Your last post about large IDE drive solved my problem. I am now using IDEATA.HAM to access netware partitions and It has worked beautiful.

Thanks again

Apoorva.




regards

Apoorva
An uses

What solution I give is according to best of my knowledge and the information / feedback that you provide. So tell us more and we can lead you to right direction.
Internet is a tool respect it and use it for human wellfair.