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Aptiva - General Disk Error during PC-DOS 7.0 bootup with Stacker compression
Applicable to: United States
If you have enabled Stacker compression on the C: drive in PC-DOS 7.0 and you are using the Rapid Resume feature of the IBM PS/1 or Aptiva systems, you may encounter the "General Disk Error" message during the bootup process. When preparing to shut down the system, you will find that the system will beep when the power button is pushed, and the system will shut down shortly thereafter. When you power on the system after that, you will find that Rapid Resume is not working.
This problem is due to an incompatibility between the Rapid Resume facilities of the IBM PS/1 & Aptiva systems and the Stacker compression. Fortunately, there are two possible solutions to this incompatibility problem:
1.) Install Stacker to compress only the free space on the drive
or
2. Create a separate partition to hold the Rapid Resume data file
The easier solution is the first: to compress the free space on the drive, rather than compressing the current data files on the drive. To do this, start up Stacker per the instructions for the Stacker program, and select the option to compress the FREE space on the drive. This will create new logical drives (D:, E:, etc.) from the free space on the drive without affecting the C: drive. Rapid Resume will now work normally.
If you decide that you want to compress the C: drive and use Rapid Resume on the system, then follow the steps below. Note that the procedure takes some time to do and requires some amount of interaction at various times, while there may be times when you can leave the system running until the next interaction is required.
As an overview, the steps below will tell you how to create an Extended DOS partition on the drive that is large enough to accommodate the _PS1SAVE.DAT file (Rapid Resume's data file). The Rapid Resume feature needs disk space sufficient to hold your installed memory plus 64 KB (kilobytes) plus your video driver memory. For a system with 8 MB of RAM (Random Access Memory), this would be a little more than 9 MB, so a value of 10 MB would be good to use. For a system with 16 MB of RAM, the amount of space needed will be 18 or 19 megabytes, so using a value of 20 MB would be the best to use.
If you plan to add more memory to the computer at a later time, you might wish to consider setting up the space on the new partition now for the expected memory size. Planning for future increases in memory is necessary because it is not possible to reallocate partition sizes on a hard drive without reformatting the drive and losing all of your data.
One additional note: A logical drive letter should not be assigned to the new partition, since Rapid Resume will not be able to find the partition correctly. This will be re-stated in the steps below.
Use the following procedure to add a new partition to your hard drive to make space available for the Rapid Resume _PS1SAVE.DAT file.
1. Before you begin, use the PS/1 Fitness icon in the PS/1 Tools group or the Custom Tools icon in the AptivaWare group to make your bootable Recovery diskette. On PS/1 systems, if you do not have the Recovery files on a CD-ROM, use the Backup/Restore icon in PS/1 Fitness to create the specific recovery diskettes needed for your system. You may also want to make a full or partial backup of your system using the IBM PC-DOS backup program, CPBACKUP (or WNBACKUP in Windows), or you may use the backup program MSBACKUP (MWBACKUP in Windows) if MS-DOS is installed, or any other backup program that you prefer.
After you use the Recovery diskette(s) to restore your original software, you can then use CPBACKUP or WNBACKUP to restore your full or partial backup.
2. Exit Windows and select the DOS prompt option from the menu.
3. Enter FDISK to resize the Primary DOS partition to a size which is smaller by enough megabytes to accommodate the _PS1SAVE.DAT file both now and after any planned, future memory upgrades, plus the video memory size plus 64 KB. For example, if the drive now has a 253 MB Primary DOS partition with 8 MB of RAM and you anticipate adding 8 MB of RAM to your system for a total of 16 MB, resize the Primary DOS partition to 235 MB (rounded). The remainder of the space will be used in the next step.
4. Create an Extended DOS partition that is large enough to contain your Rapid Resume file (in the example, this would be equal to 18 MB). Do NOT assign a drive letter to this partition.
5. Make the primary DOS partition active.
6. Exit FDISK, insert the bootable Recovery diskette into the A: drive and reboot the system.
7. Select the option, Go To The DOS Prompt, at the Recovery diskette menu. Then, enter the following command at the A:\> prompt: FORMAT C: /S
8. Enter "EXIT" at the A: prompt to return to the Recovery Menu and then select: "Install Original Software" to restore your original software. Restore your full backup at this time if you choose to (you can wait till step 11 to do this as well, which may be easier). Do not run Stacker on the drive at this time.
9. Reboot the system. At the C: prompt, enter:
CD \PS1TOOLS
SR_PART C:
You will be asked how much of the space available you would like to use as a Rapid Resume partition. Specify all of it.
10. After the partition is created, and the next time the system boots, the _PS1SAVE.DAT file will be allocated on the Extended DOS partition created in step 4.
11. Reboot the system and you can now restore your system from the backups. If necessary, you can re-install the DOS upgrade at this time.
12. At this time, you can now run Stacker to compress the C: drive.
While this may appear to be a complicated procedure, it does work and can be completed in about an hour or so, at least up to and including step 11. The time needed to compress the drive with Stacker is dependent on the size of the drive and the number of files on the drive.
Prepare everything ahead of time so that you have everything when you need it. Once you run FDISK and change the size of the drive, you will not have a chance to make the recovery diskettes, so do the backup and create the recovery diskettes in step 1 for your system before you do anything else.
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Search Keywords |
DOS | |
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Hint Category |
DOS/Windows 3.x, Utility Software, Error Messages | |
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Date Created |
17-04-97 | |
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Last Updated |
22-02-99 | |
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Revision Date |
22-02-2000 | |
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Brand |
IBM Aptiva | |
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Product Family |
Aptiva, PS/1 | |
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Machine Type |
2144, 2168, 2133, 2155 | |
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Model |
11E; 13T; 14C; 16E; 17A; 18A; 18T; 19C; 21C; 23C; 28A; 46M; 51D; D50; G11; G13; G43; G46; G46; G49; G49; G50; G53; M40; M40; M46; M46; P11; P13; P43; P50; P53; R04; R05; R06; R09; R38; R42; R43; R44; R84; R86; R87; RO3; S11; S13; S43; S45; S45; S47; S47; S48; S48; S50; S53; W11; W13; W42; W42; W43; W45; W45; W50; W53; 20E; 22T; 24C; 24M; 28V; 39E; 41T; 43C; 45V; 48E; 50T; 52C; 55V; 72E; 74T; 76C; 78C; 79C; 81A; 82E; 84T; 86C; 87C; CC1; D53; G14; G44; G52; G54; G72; G76; G78; G82; NM1; P14; P44; P57; P71; P74; P76; P78; P84; R14; R15; R16; R17; R18; R51; R52; R57; R58; R62; R63; R67; R71; R89; R93; R96; R97; S14; S44; S50; S54; S70; S75; S76; S78; S80; W14; W44; W48; W54; W67; W76; W77; W78; Z33; 28V; 31E; 33T; 37C; 38C; 51E; 54T; 56C; 57C; 88V; BB1; G57; G87; OR1; OR3; OR4; OR5; P89; R28; R29; R31; R74; R78; R82; R98; S55; S85; SR1; US1; W52; W82; 1R2; 66P; 67P; 86P; OR8; 1R1; 1R3; 1R5; 22P; 24P; 25P; 27P; 29P; 63P; 67P; 82P; 83P; OR6; OR7; OR9; 1R0; 1R1; 26P; 62P; 2R3; S15 | |
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TypeModel |
213311E | |
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