MikeS
Veteran Member
It really sounds like you're confusing the Master Boot Record with the various OS boot records and system files.
The boot sector that the bootstrap loader is placed in is the very first sector of the disk(ette).
When the DR-DOS manual talks about location not being critical they are talking about the DOS system files, not the MBR; in early versions of DOS these did have to be at the beginning of the root directory (NOT the disk drive), i.e. within a bootable partition. The location of that partition is usually in the MBR and that MBR or at least a pointer to the MBR's location must normally be in the first sector of the disk in order for the BIOS to be able to find it.
See:
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/master_boot_record.htm
I suspect that Scandisk is actually telling you what you need to (but don't want to) know, namely that the disk drive indeed has unfixable errors...
If the first sector is OK but there is a hard error elsewhere on that physical track then being able to start the first partition on a specific higher "track" might work, at least for a while, but I'd think about replacing the drive instead...
The boot sector that the bootstrap loader is placed in is the very first sector of the disk(ette).
When the DR-DOS manual talks about location not being critical they are talking about the DOS system files, not the MBR; in early versions of DOS these did have to be at the beginning of the root directory (NOT the disk drive), i.e. within a bootable partition. The location of that partition is usually in the MBR and that MBR or at least a pointer to the MBR's location must normally be in the first sector of the disk in order for the BIOS to be able to find it.
See:
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/master_boot_record.htm
I suspect that Scandisk is actually telling you what you need to (but don't want to) know, namely that the disk drive indeed has unfixable errors...
If the first sector is OK but there is a hard error elsewhere on that physical track then being able to start the first partition on a specific higher "track" might work, at least for a while, but I'd think about replacing the drive instead...
Last edited: