Norton Disk Doctor tells me that I have an invalid extended partition
on my hard drive.  However, after backing up my whole hard drive and
telling NDD to correct it, it finds the DOS areas of the partition and
then proceeds to not change or repair anything, and gives me a report
that the status is "still needs correcting".  I need to know how to
fix this partition (either instructions or pointers to a decent tool).

---

Request for Question Clarification by molloch-ga on 29 Aug 2002 21:46 PDT

Hi,

The partition may indeed be valid. Which version of Nortons are you
using and what operating system are you using?

Thanks

Molloch

---

Request for Question Clarification by alienintelligence-ga on 29 Aug 2002 21:55 PDT

Hi johnd39

Any chance this link would offer a solution?
You didn't mention the Operating System or
the version of Disk Doctor... so this is a 
stab in the dark. Also if you could tell us
the other types of partitions and their sizes?

[ http://www.compaq.com/support/files/armada/us/download/8374.html ]

-AI

---

Clarification of Question by johnd39-ga on 29 Aug 2002 22:16 PDT

I am running Win98 SE (FAT-32).  There is a main partition (22.5 GB)
and an extended partition divided into 4 logical drives (sizes 12.4,
12.4, 16.3, and 12.4 GB).  NDD version is part of Norton SystemWorks
2002, which (according to the instructions anyway) is supposed to work
under Win98, 2000, and XP.

---

Request for Question Clarification by alienintelligence-ga on 29 Aug 2002 23:09 PDT

Hi again johnd39...

Hmmm, Nortons DD... I guess I should
have specified, could you clarify 
which "release version" you have of
the software. Like v.1.11 etc.


Maybe we should go back a bit... 
Why are you scanning with NDD to
start with? Is it because you
suspected something to be wrong
and ran it as a diagnostic? Or are
you just running this as preventive
measure?

How about we do this instead...
As with the diagnosis of a human 
patient, why not do the second
opinion route?

Depending on your Hard Drive
brand...

Western Digital
[ http://websupport.wdc.com/diag/dlg_download.asp ]
or
[ http://support.wdc.com/download/ ]

Maxtor
[ http://www.maxtor.com/products/DiamondMax/techsupport/TechnicalProcedures/20014.htm
]

IBM
[ http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm ]

Seagate
[ http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/index.html ]

These programs will tell you if anything is wrong with
your hard drive and correct the problems if they are
of the correctable type. Plus, they are recommended
by the manufacturer ;-)

If you are just testing your hard drives to make sure
no problems are going to creep up as a preventive thing.
Use something like this

[ http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm#smart ]


I guess without throwing a ton
of personal opinion on things, 
let me finalize this statement
with; I have never had Nortons
'anything' catch or fix any real
problem. Nor have I had anything
reported as a problem by Nortons
that was an indeterminable problem
at the time of Nortons running.



-AI

---

Clarification of Question by johnd39-ga on 30 Aug 2002 04:17 PDT

I am running NDD under NU version 6.03.36.  When Win 98 crashes, upon
restart it automatically tries to run Scandisk, but when NU is
installed on a Windows box, it runs NDD instead.

Hi johnd39....

Have you tried any of the utilities I mentioned
to make sure your HD is ok? You will need to do
that to make sure there REALLY IS a problem. The
programs I suggested in my prior comments will
either fix your HD problems or give you an error
code when it's unfixable. You use the code for
getting a rma to replace the Hard Drive. (If it
is under warranty of course)


Here is the way to get rid of the pesky NDD
boot popup:

"How to disable automatic scanning after an
improper shutdown:

You can modify Windows to prevent it from doing
an automatic scan after an improper shutdown.

For Windows 9x, Microsoft provides the Tweak UI
utility in Power Toys for this purpose. Download
Power Toys from Microsoft at:
[ http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp
]
The option to turn off automatic scanning is on
the Boot tab.

Or In Windows 98, add the line AutoScan=0 to the
MSDOS.SYS file in the [Options] section. This
line will disable any disk scanner from running
after an improper shutdown. MSDOS.SYS is a
hidden system text file located in the root
directory of the C: drive (C:\).

-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-

Another description of how to stop NDD from
coming up in place of Scandisk:

Method 1 - Norton Utilities 2000, 2001, and 2002
For Norton Utilities 2000, 2001, and 2002, to modify
Windows to run ScanDisk or Norton Disk Doctor after 
an improper shutdown, change the options in Norton 
Integrator as follows:

1. Double-click the Norton Utilities Integrator icon that is on the
desktop.
2. Click Options and choose Norton Utilities.
3. Select the General Settings tab.
4. To make ScanDisk the default utility, uncheck Replace ScanDisk with
Norton Disk Doctor.
5. To make Norton Disk Doctor the default utility, check Replace
ScanDisk with Norton Disk Doctor.
6. Click OK.

The full page with this info straight from Symantec
[ http://service4.symantec.com/SUPPORT/nunt.nsf/docid/1999120816591909
]


Same info, different site:
[ http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Win95_3x/Win95/Q_20154015.html
]


-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-*-X-


-Search Techniques-
NDD scandisk
[ ://www.google.com/search?q=NDD+scandisk ]


I hope this solves your problem. Please refer
to my earlier comment with the drive manufacturer
links for their diagnostic software to use in 
place of the NDD.

If you are unsure about something I posted,
please ask for a clarification before accepting
the answer.


thanks for using answers.google,
-AI

I probably should have asked the question better; Google might want to
consider coming up with a form for technical questions like computer
problems.  All the things that were suggested in the answer were
things I had already checked.  However, the researcher did a decent
job answering the question as I asked it.

You will need to schedule disk doctor to fix up that drive upon the
next boot.  Because the drive is currently in use, disk doctor or
scandisk cannot access the drive.  When you schedule this repair, the
partition will be fixed the next time you boot your system.  I
actually ran into this problem before, and it turned out my 20GB drive
was about to die.  Hopefully your drive is fine and just ran into a
logic problem.  Anyways, just schedule a repair and restart your
system.  That should take care of any problem you have with the
partition.

Also, how do I answer a question instead of just commenting?!
ARG!