BleepingComputer.com: Dos computer crashing

Help! I have a DOS computer and it is crashing . On it is no internet.
Computer Specs are:
DOS 6.22
WINDOWS 3.11
HARD DRIVE :WDC AC22500L

In CHKDKS it says that certain directories are invalid

Expmple of error:
DIRECTORY C:/CORNY
Invalid sub-directory entry

When I try to run SCANDISK it says:
Scandisk encountered data error in FAT. scandisk can't fix this.

Also in certain directories this error is displayed:
Data error in drive C:
Abort,Retry,Fail

One question more:
Where can I find 16-bit dos Soundblaster soundcard drivers?

This post has been edited by 34BLEEP00XX: 11 November 2011 - 08:06 PM

I have little doubt that the hard drive is simply failing. At that age, it's not unexpected, and whilst you could try drive diagnostic software, the prospects of being able to recover such a drive and have it be reliable are not good. (Modern diagnostic software typically doesn't work correctly with CHS drives anyway.) If the contents are important, you would probably be better off to transfer as much as you can off the drive while it still works and substitute a working drive. However it's likely a system of that age can only utilize drives of less than 8.4GB capacity, and reliability will be becoming an issue with any drive of that era.

For soundblaster drivers, you could start with:

http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=207&prodID=1841&prodName=Sound%20Blaster&subCatName=Others&CatName=Sound+Blaster&VARSET=prodfaq:PRODFAQ_1841,VARSET=CategoryID:1

What specific card/s are involved?

Can you tell me where I can download a diagnostic tool for that drive? I take my chances with it
Sound card drivers founded. I found it myself .
One question more:
How to run SIMCITY 2000 with dos on WINDOWS XP?

Great hint for everybody:
If you have OLD dos games and you want to run them in windows XP try a program called VDMSOUND. It is a dos sound/enviroment editor for windows xp.

This post has been edited by 34BLEEP00XX: 12 November 2011 - 02:28 PM

WD diagnostic utilities:

http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?modelno=AC22500L&x=11&y=6

I have no experience of running older DOS stuff in XP, so someone else may be able to offer help there.

You may have a file system problem and not one with the drive at all. At least that is the way I read the errors you are getting. Wont hurt to test it with the WD tools though. If it fails replace it.

With a hard drive that old I would not be surprised if it on the verge of failure as well.

You might try backing up your data then FDISK the drive and delete the partition and recreate it.
A reboot must be done after deleting the partition and after recreating the new one.
Then format the drive and reinstall.

If the system has not been reloaded in many years you are almost guaranteed of file corruption of some sort.

One thing I must point out is if you end up replacing the drive, yours uses an IDE interface and will not work with the newer SATA standard. IDE drives are getting harder and harder to find. If you find a good deal on one I would buy it just to have on hand.

Also, The system BIOS may have a limit on the hard drive that it will accept, as Platy mentioned
Could you please post the make/model of the system.

Edit: I just looked up the specs on your drive and WD reports it as a 2.5 megabyte drive. You are almost assured that it is at the end of its long life.

This post has been edited by Eyesee: 12 November 2011 - 08:40 PM

I try to find my back up disks and install all again. That will help for sure.

Question:
Does computer need to be connected mains all time? I mean there is no power cable to socket. It is just on a floor unpowered.
Does the computer without mains drain up that CMOS battery faster?
How long those batteries usually last?

The CMOS backup battery will be powering the Real Time Clock and the BIOS setup data storage, but CMOS circuitry draws microscopic current and the backup battery will run it for years.

I would test the drive before you take time to fdisk format & reload it. If the drive is failing your efforts would be futile.
A drive of that size has to be evey bit of 15+ years old. Chances of it failing are extremely good at this point.
I would back up any data that you want to save somehow asap just in case.

As far as the battery, for many years now motherboards use a CR2032 battery which is under five bucks and available just about anywhere.
You can get 5+ years out of them easily. A symtom of a failing battery would be that the system will lose time when powered off.
Open the case and look at the motherboard. The CR2032 looks about the size of a nickel.

Some really old motherboards used drum type batteries that were soldered on to the motherboard and are not replaceable

Test the drive before you do anything else. You may have to find an older version of WDDiag that works with your drive as the newer versions may not.

sounds like a file table problem. reformat drive or go all out , fdisk to delete and create partition , reboot, format. i was just working on old { 504mb hdd limit } computer. hdd still worked fine but very old { 120mb . 3800rpm} so i took it out and installed two newer hdd { 3gb and 4gb } , i just set bios to max for hdd and now i have two 504mb hdd. it does not hurt the drives, just uses 504 mb . works great and i don`t have to worry about ddo or anything. dos and win3.11 run fine with all features avalible . i hooked a cd to sb16 ide channel{computer only has 1 ide} and it works great too {cd is newer , manufactured around 2000} so most parts are backward compatible. my total cost was 6 hrs of trying parts { i have many , from peoples throw outs} and now i have a true dos/win3.11 machine circa 1993, running great {and internet too!} there are many things to keep the old stuff running at low or no cost.