LBA problem. Scandisk indicates C: disk is faulty

Did you follow instructions to reboot and run it in DOS? It will not run while up under windows.

Hi

Thanks for the response. No, I've cleared Windows off entirely and I've inserted the lbafixfn.exe file in my floppy drive. Then, at A: in DOS, I entered that file name, which didn't work, so I then tried lbafixfn, run, setup, autorun, etc but couyldn't persuade the disk to load the program into the machine and turn LBA on.

Cheers

Mike

That is weird. I tried the download, made the Floppy and tried it on a CPiD. It autoexecuted and if I had not aborted, it would have "done the job". I have had bad floppy disks give weird results, so i would retry with a different brand or batch of disks, as it seems to do exactly what it supposed to do. That was the reason for my previous question. Try it again with the command AUTOEXEC at the A:\prompt

Message Edited by leduke30 on 05-23-2004 08:28 PM

Thanks for that - you restored my faith in Dell's file - but I would have liked a readme file from them in the first place.

I have produced, below, a detailed account of the workaround to help the other people who have struggled with this one.

 I did what you suggested and found that lbafixfn.exe  (ie a legitimate 8 char name) from the floppy arrived on my laptop but  dir A: described it as lbafix~1.exe. This didn't seem helpful so I renamed it lbafixfn.exe.

However, I then discovered in DOS, somehow, that it was a zip file (which is why I couldn't autoexecit before) and happily it unzipped onto one floppy on my desktop. I entered Autoexec to run it and it produced a message stating that it would restore the machine to its original factory state and specifically mentioned that it would be "correcting the LBA error". The solution was at hand. At this stage it gave  me two options.

Option 2. was exit program - "left hand arrow[0m" and

Option 1. was "left hand arrow0m1" where, again, my description "left hand arrow" indicates a small arrow pointing to the left. I took a risk that this was largely garbage and the all I needed to do was to enter "1" and that I did.

So I "entered" 2 and it seems it proceeded OK, except for one reservation. LBA seems to have been switched back on becaus3 Scandisk will now run on C; and the two new drvives D: and E:. The reservation is that a program called ZigZag runs as part of the process of reurning the machine to its factory state and this threw up a "warning- partitin exceeds 1023 cylinders". This sounds ominous but since everything else seems ok I am planning to reinstall Windows98 now and see what happens. I'll let you know.

Pleas shout if the 1023 cylinders warning is serious.

Cheers

Tulysses

I doubt it as that was the Cylinder Value Limit for NonLBA enabled drives. I noticed the executable ZZ and wondered what it was for. You are not the first to download a Zipped file, and then Send it to a Floppy Disk instead of unzipping to a Floppy Disk, and then be frustrated when it did not work. You can include me in that company back about 2 1/2 years. It should have occurred to me.

I'm having a hard time finding the utility lbafixfn.exe.  Have they stopped publishing it?  If you still have it I'd love a copy.  Thanks, -M

---

@mcrisby wrote:
I'm having a hard time finding the utility lbafixfn.exe.  Have they stopped publishing it?  If you still have it I'd love a copy.  Thanks, -M

---

Thanks!