MBRWORK - How to tell which HDD you're working on:

MbrWork displays hard disks only--EIDE/PATA, SATA, and connected external HDDs.  CD/DVD drives and floppy drives won't be shown.  Beware: most USB flash drives emulate a hard disk, so *will be enumerated* if they are plugged in.

If there is more than one HDD enumerated, MbrWork will include option 7 ("Change active hard drive") on the menu.  The menu option is suppressed if there is only one HDD.

HDD enumeration (e.g., "HD0" vs "HD1") can change depending on how the system has been booted.  Therefore, you should get into the habit of looking at the partition table to see if it looks like the HDD you mean to be working on.  MbrWork assumes you want to work on HD0 unless you select menu option #7 and switch to another HDD.

If you boot from your main HDD, it will be HD0 and other HDDs (secondaries, externals, and flash drives) will be HD1 and above.  If you boot from a flash drive, the flash drive will be HD0 and other HDDs (including your main HDD) will be HD1 and above.  If you boot from floppy or from CD/DVD, your main HDD will probably be HD0, but get yourself into the habit of checking to be sure.

Clues to look for in the partition table:

• There are four rows in the partition table.  Are there entries in more than one row (i.e., more than one partition)?  Flash drives will have only a single partition.  Hard disks may have one or more.

• What file system (see column 6) is the partition using?  NTFS partitions will be shown as "7".  FAT32 partitions will be shown as "b" or "c".  Flash drives will typically have a single FAT32 partition.  Hard disks typically have one or more NTFS partitions.

• If there is more than one HDD, the MbrWork menu will include option 7 (Change active hard drive).  Switch to the other HDDs and compare partition tables to see if one looks more right than the other.

NightOwl

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! ... ~~~ dee dle dee dle dumm ~~~

 

... and I'm

~~~Oh, what a beautiful mo:::::rning~~~

ahem, sorry for my sing-along.

Quote:

Yesssss, now it worked :=)))

I've tried *cd* yesterday, already - just without the space and the two periods [dots] ,,,

First thing today was to look for mail > found your *new* instructions & did as told.

It's done within less than a second (*backup First Track* I mean).

To make sure the *.bin is actually on my floppy > I checked.
> = "BACK0.BIN" | 32kB | date.

Thank you all for making me so happy >

(Going to read the latest posts now).

henriette

henriette

henriette wrote on Jun 19^th, 2012 at 4:12am:


henriette wrote on Jun 19^th, 2012 at 5:10am:

Appreciate the compliments--but I'm concerned--I didn't email you any instructions!  All of my communications have been postings on the forum.

That's not my way of doing things here on the forum.  I like the communications to be posted for all to see regarding anything we are discussing in a thread.  I rarely use any *Private Messages* (PM's), and almost never emails.  I know sometimes it might be *more efficient* to use non-forum methods of communication--but, then I think the forum community as a whole is being left out, and *suffers* from such behind the scene activity.

I'm hoping that you misread the source of the *email* you are referring to, and it came from someone else here on the forum--maybe mentioning my name or something.

If someone is impersonating me--I guess I need to know that!  If it really looks like the email came from me, we need to *talk* using *PM's* (private messaging).

My concern is that if someone who looks trustworthy is impersonating me--then you are at high risk of getting that MBR or other virus, trojan malware, or other malware of some sort.  Opening an attachment or clicking on a link in such an email could be a real problem!

Make sure you are using an antivirus program that scans emails, up to date definitions--but, even then, clicking an attachment or link may still cause an infection--these types of emails probably will not be caught by the antivirus program!

So let me know the result of your re-checking the email source.  Don't delete it if you haven't already--may need to see information from it, if possible.

Did anyone else here, per chance, send henriette an email?

(We're embarking on another tangent here, henriette, so feel free to disregard if you wish.)

NightOwl wrote on Jun 19^th, 2012 at 10:14am:

I don't know if "given drive" is semantically correct . . . it changes the directory on the current drive, whereas "cd a:\" would change the "given drive", and "a:" is the given.

DOS internally keeps track of the "working directory" on each drive, as well as the "current drive"--as you say, the drive with focus.

To switch the current drive, simply type "a:" or "c:".

(Aside:  DOS commands are not case-sensitive.  The command line is internally converted to uppercase by the command interpreter--e.g., io.sys, so case is irrelevant.)

DOS was beautiful in that it followed rigid rules.  Drives are denoted by a letter followed by a colon.  Backslashes denote directories.  The two special directory names, "." (current directory) and ".." (parent directory), are references that make the backslash relative instead of absolute.

"A:" refers to drive A:, "A:\" refers to the root directory of drive A:, and "\" refers to the root directory of the current drive.

DOS internally keeps track of the working directory of each drive, so if the working directory of C: is C:\BIN and the working directory of A: is A:\BACKUP, then typing "a:" or "c:" switches directly between A:\BACKUP and C:\BIN.

The CHDIR command (aka, "CD") changes the working directory.  Entering "cd foobar" is different from "cd \foobar", which is different from "cd c:\foobar", which is different from "cd c:foobar".

For illustration, suppose the working drive of C: is c:\dos\files, your current drive is A:, and the current working directory is a:\data\stuff.  Put all the rules together and you have the following very consistent and predictable results:

command:	result:
cd foobar	changes A: working dir to a:\data\stuff\foobar
cd \foobar	changes A: working dir to a:\foobar
cd .\foobar	changes A: working dir to a:\data\stuff\foobar
cd ..\foobar	changes A: working dir to a:\data\foobar
cd c:foobar	changes C: working dir to c:\dos\files\foobar
cd c:\foobar	changes C: working dir to c:\foobar
cd c:.\foobar	changes C: working dir to c:\dos\files\foobar
cd c:..\foobar	changes C: working dir to c:\dos\foobar
cd c:..\..\foobar	changes C: working dir to c:\foobar

(Note the changes to C: won't be apparent while A: is the current drive, but when you enter "c:" to switch the current drive you'll see the change.)

All this versatility isn't just for the convenience of the user, it's also for the benefit of programs.  A program can be installed in a directory with its own special subdirectories, and then be able to access files without having to worry about whether the user installed it somewhere other than the default or changed the name of the installation directory.

I'm sure you've heard stories of brain-dead programs that would only install to the C: drive or would only install to a specific, hard-coded directory.  That's not DOS's fault--it provided the options but the programmer didn't use them.

Dan

Quote:

No way 

DOS is a most interesting *part* of the computer - its heart, if I may say so.

In other words: when I boot into DOS, I feel kinda *within* my PC ... just the fact that I lack in commands ---
*to lack the knack*, as the Brits say

Mind: both my XP and my keyboard [QWERT] are all German. When it comes to DOS, though, it's all English >>> meaning also, I have to take the picture of an English keyboard [QWERT] in order to press the right keys.

No big problem, except > never forget that Z=Y!!! < most important when making changes in BIOS, after which you're asked to *save changes* ---> ES = ES!

I know there are tools where you can switch a German keyboard to English ... I refuse to try those odd tools!

Oh, I'm reading & trying to learn with utmost interest what you teach about DOS and it's commands.

henriette   

Dan Goodell

Dan Goodell wrote on Jun 19^th, 2012 at 5:43pm:

Nice--*Summer School* session has started  !

Dan Goodell wrote on Jun 19^th, 2012 at 5:43pm:

Indeed!  Bad semantics--computers and software really don't like that, do they  !

One minor addition to your explanation:

Dan Goodell wrote on Jun 19^th, 2012 at 5:43pm:

I think the directory *foobar* has to actually exist in all the locations that you use *cd* to change to--otherwise I get the error message *Invalid directory*!


Dan Goodell wrote on Jun 19^th, 2012 at 5:43pm:

That must not have been *always* true.  Way back when, I can remember instructions saying DOS commands need to be all uppercase.  So, I assume somewhere along the line--probably long before DOS v6.22, the command interpreter wasn't so *smart*.

Dan,

While we are on a tangent can you explain what this does...

CD /d %~dp0

I've used it to change to the directory in use but I don't entirely understand what I've done.