re: ARC miniloader - "FILE SYSTEM NOT RECOGNIZED"

Neal. 20-Oct-1995 0929 +0100 (crook@rdgeng.enet.dec.com)
Fri, 20 Oct 95 09:45:31 MET

The error "FILE SYSTEM NOT RECOGNIZED" is reported by the ARC software. I had
a similar problem some time ago and the reason was that the boot block of
the dos floppy was corrupt (actually, it had a DOS boot sector virus). The
conclusion I drew was that ARC uses some signature in the boot block to
verify that the disk is a DOS disk.

Aside: You may recall reading in the press that a number of people have suffered
Windows95 installation problems as a result of one of the installation disks
getting infected during the install and being subsequently unrecognised by the
install software: I believe that this is the same problem.

Fixes:

1. check the machine that you generated the floppy on: boot from a know good
floppy and use a good virus scanner to check memory for viruses. You should
be able to fix up the disk OK.

2. use ARC to try to load a known good floppy (it needn't have the linux
stuff on). You should see the error message change to "file not found" or
somesuch (implying that it can recognise the filesystem).

I'd be fascinated to hear if this was the problem.

regards,

Neal.
ESAE, Digital Equipment Co,
Reading, UK.

From: VBORMC::"scook@eecs.wsu.edu" "Steven D Cook" 20-OCT-1995 03:12:10.69
To: Alpha Linux <linux-alpha@vger.rutgers.edu>
CC:
Subj: ARC miniloader

I just followed the ARC.howto on my alphapc64. I put linload.exe and
milo.arc on a dos format floppy. I try to load linux and get "FILE
SYSTEM NOT RECOGNIZED.
ERROR: DEVICE ERROR, PRESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE"
any guesses?

-------------------------------------------------------------
WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
NAME: STEVEN D COOK
URL: http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/~scook
_____________________________________________________________

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