??? Track 0: bad disk ??? error or virus????

[dilbert (a.k.a. Verl B.)]

Track 0:bad disk ---> error message! support.microsoft.com/kb/196579

win2K info:www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/reskit/w2000Msgs/2182.mspx?mfr=true

Internet wisdom:linuxgazette.net/103/foolish.html
Slipping Between Two Electrons
from Ben Okopnik

A number of years ago, I was teaching a computer repair class in St. Louis, and ran across a very nasty problem. At that time, Compaq was using some sort of boot manager that did strange things to the Master Boot Record on their proprietary (read "expensive") drives. The last day of the class was when the students actually got to test and repair their machines (I would gently "break" them in various ways during lunch. The problem was a result of several factors:

It turned out that the computer was infected with the 'Stoned' virus (unsurprising in a rented PC);
'Stoned' modifies the aforementioned MBR to execute itself and then the boot code - and stores its own code several sectors after the MBR;
The student, being a clever fellow who had listened when I talked about boot sector virus removal, deleted the virus code and rewrote the MBR...
...which made this Compaq - and as I found out later, any Compaq in a similar scenario - respond with a "Track 0 bad" error.
End of set, end of match, end of game; virus: 1, computer techies: 0. "Track 0 bad" is almost always a hardware-caused error, one which means that track 0 - which is the only place where the MBR can live - is damaged, and the drive is unusable. In this case, I knew better - but the computer did not, and (of course) refused to recognize the drive.

By this point, all my students had clustered around this poor dead beast and were looking at me with that "say, aren't you the expert?" look in their eyes. Ummm, yeah... only the expert had never seen a software-caused "Track 0" error before (nor, other than Compaqs with that exact problem, ever again - thanks to the Universe for small favors.)

I tried using Norton DiskEdit, which had pulled my fat from the fire before. It could see the drive despite what the BIOS said, halleluja!... but only in "read" mode - even the "/M" (maintenance mode) switch didn't help. I had the original MBR backed up onto a floppy, but couldn't write it back. What I needed was for the computer to read a good MBR from the HD - at which point I would be able to put the original MBR back on. It was a Catch-22 problem, in the classic manner.

The solution was simple - and simply horrible... but it worked (the students applauded, at the end.) I took an identical but working drive out of a similar Compaq - there was only one more in the room - booted the machine with it, and then, while power was still on, unplugged it and plugged in the "bad" drive. I was being ultra-careful to not 'stutter' when making or breaking the connections - the last thing I wanted to see was a spark! - and I somehow made it, with both drives and the motherboard surviving the experience (one of my students said that I must have "slipped in between two electrons".) The machine now "knew" that it had a good drive, and I was able to rewrite the MBR.

As a side note, I later found out that the Western Digital low-level format application would wipe the drive clean even though the BIOS didn't recognize it, which would also have fixed the problem (not that I had one with me at the time, but this solution was far less risky.) I also met several repair techs who had thrown away Compaq HDs exhibiting that "Track 0 bad" error. When I told them about my experience, they inevitable cursed up a storm; IDE hard drives were then brand-new on the market and very expensive.


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stay tuned for more.......latter.

dilbert