Table of Errors: Most of these will prevent the Harddisk from working correctly under DOS, so it's not likely that you ever get these errors. Invalid Rootsector Signature The last two bytes of the rootsector must be 55 AA (hex) More than one bootable Partition In the partition table there should only be one partition marked bootable You can override this message with the -omb switch Invalid bootable-flag The bootable flag in the partition table should be 80h or 0 You can override this message with the -obf switch Invalid Start Sector The start sector number of the partition is either 0 or greater than the number of sectors per track Invalid End Sector The end sector number of the partition is either 0 or greater than the number of sectors per track Invalid Start Head The number of the start head of the partition is greater than the total number of heads of the drive - 1 Invalid End Head The number of the end head of the partition is greater than the total number of heads of the drive - 1 Partition Table Corrupt - start The start sector (head/cylinder/sector) does not match the absolute start sector Partition Table Corrupt - end The end sector (head/cylinder/sector) does not match the absolute start sector + the number of sectors Overlapping Partitions The partition table contains overlapping partitions Invalid Jump Instruction in Bootsector The first three bytes of the bootsector must be a 3-byte jump (E9 xx xx) or a 2-byte jump (EB xx 90). Perhaps the partition is not yet formatted. FIPS can only split DOS-formatted partitions. Invalid Bootsector The last two bytes of the bootsector must be 55 AA (hex) Can't handle number of Bytes per Sector The number of bytes per sector must be 512 Number of Sectors per Cluster must be a power of 2 Only 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 are allowed Partition must have 2 FATs Every DOS partition has 2 copies of the FAT Number of Rootdir entries must be multiple of 16 One sector of the rootdirectory contains 16 entries You can override this message with the -ore switch Number of Rootdir entries must not be zero Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? Wrong Media Descriptor Byte in Bootsector The Media Descriptor Byte in the Bootsector should be F8 (hex) You can override this message with the -omd switch FAT too large FAT has more than 256 sectors - useless, since 2 bytes * 64K entries = 128K = 256 * 512 bytes. If you can access the drive, do not attempt to change this. You can override this message with the -olf switch FAT too small The partition has more clusters than the FAT can handle You can override this message with the -osf switch Number of hidden sectors incorrect The number of hidden sectors in the bootsector must match the number of the start sector in the partition table 12-bit FAT not supported FIPS can't split partitions with a 12-bit FAT Number of sectors (short) must be zero For partitions with more than 65536 sectors (BIGDOS) the number of sectors (short) must be zero Number of sectors (short) does not match Partition Info The number of sectors in the partition table must match the number of sectors in the bootsector Number of Sectors (long) does not match Partition Info The number of sectors in the partition table must match the number of sectors in the bootsector Invalid Drive number Only the numbers 128 - 255 are valid drive numbers Invalid Partition number Only the numbers 1 - 4 are valid partition numbers Error reading FAT 1 Read error - bad sector Error reading FAT 2 Read error - bad sector FAT copies differ The two copies of the FAT differ - use CHKDSK Wrong Media Descriptor Byte in FAT The first byte of each FAT is the Media Descriptor - it should be F8h You can override this message with the -omd switch New Partition not empty The New Partition must be completely empty Too many drives found FIPS can handle up to 9 drives - that should be enough for most PCs :-) No Compatible Harddisk found Hey, where is your drive? Perhaps your Harddisk is not int 13h compatible. No valid partition found All partitions in the partition table are empty No free partition All four partitions are in use Error reading Drive Geometry Interrupt 13h 08h returned an error code Drive Initialization Failure Interrupt 13h 00h returned an error code Error reading Root Sector Read error - bad sector, wrong drive number or incompatible harddrive Can't split extended Partitions FIPS can not yet split extended DOS partitions Invalid Partition selected The partition selected with the -p switch is empty Unknown Filesystem Only DOS partitions can be split (System Indicator Byte must be 4 or 6) Error reading Boot Sector Read error - bad sector Partition too small - can't split If the partition has only slightly more than 4085 clusters, it can't be split any further without rewriting the FAT to 12 bit. Last Cylinder is not free Since the new partition is created at the end of the old one and contains at least one cylinder, the partition can not be split if not at least the very last cylinder is completely free. Probably there is a hidden file like 'image.idx' or 'mirorsav.fil' in the last cylinder - see the doc. Invalid new start cylinder The start cylinder chosen with the -c switch is not valid Error writing Root Sector Write error - perhaps the disk is write protected? Error writing Boot Sector Write error :-( - this will hopefully never happen ... Too many save files on disk There can only be ten save files on one floppy disk (rootboot.000 to rootboot.009). Delete some or use another floppy disk. Can't open file FIPS tried to write the file rootboot.00? to drive A: but an error occured Try using another floppy disk Error writing file FIPS tried to write the file rootboot.00? to drive A: but an error occured Try using another floppy disk Error closing file FIPS tried to write the file rootboot.00? to drive A: but an error occured Try using another floppy disk Warnings: These will not cause FIPS to exit, since they are not really errors. If you have the possibility to correct the problem, do it; if not, this will not affect DOS, so you should be safe. Invalid Partition entry The partition entry contains data, but the system indicator is 0 (empty). Attention: FIPS will possibly overwrite this entry. Make sure this is no valid Partition (temporarily disabled etc.) Partition does not end on Cylinder boundary All partitions should end on a cylinder boundary Partition does not begin on Cylinder boundary Normally, all partitions except the first one should begin on head 0, sector 1 of a cylinder. This is not required by DOS, however. Free Space between Partitions There is free space on the harddisk that is not covered by a partition Number of reserved sectors should be 1 The bootsector uses only 1 sector, so the number of reserved sector is usually 1. If you can access your drive, do not attempt to change this. Sectors per track incorrect The number of sectors per track in the bootsector does not match the actual drive geometry reported by the BIOS Number of drive heads incorrect The number of drive heads in the bootsector does not match the actual drive geometry reported by the BIOS Wrong System Indicator Byte For BIGDOS Partitions the System Indicator Byte should be 6; for DOS16 Partitions it should be 4 Wrong Signature Partitions with 32-bit sector numbers (since DOS 4.0+) have an 'extended Bios Parameter Block' in the bootsector, its signature byte is 29h. This is however totally ignored by DOS. Drive number in bootsector does not match actual drivenumber The drive number in the bootsector does not match the drive number by which the drive is accessed Wrong FAT entries 1 & 2 A 16-bit FAT should start with F8 FF FF FF Can't open debugfile The debugfile is created in the current directory - make sure it is writable