hey, nazrix. thanks for the help. how would i use that debug script that you mentioned? can i get it?

a2k

Well...you could just have some fun with your Master Boot record: "fdisk /mbr" is an undocumented command line switch that''ll flash/refresh your master boot record. I''m not sure of the effect on harddrive data, so use at your own risk.

Epolevne

thanks,epolevne. that''s one thing i haven''t tried yet. i had destroyed the partitions and reformatted the 2 new ones, and still got 637k. i''ll see if this works...

nazrix, hope yer still there. what''s this debug script?

a2k

Okay...I''ll look for it ..just a sec

here you go...
the ones that say xxxx:whavever are responses .....everythign else is what you type in...

then you have to reboot and fdisk then format

Hope it helps

-F 200 L1000 0
-A CS:100
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80 <-- ""80"" for hd 0, ""81"" for hd 1
xxxx:010C INT 13
xxxx:010E INT 20
xxxx:0110 <---BLANK LINE - IMPORTANT!
-G
Program terminated normally

Holy crap that is complicated! Well hey everyone please check out my post in this forum!!




Matthew Fitzgerald (Maketty),
Knightvision Games

It''s assembly. Trust me I don''t understand it. I just copy/pasted it hehe

that gives me great reassurance...

a2k

Well I don''t understand every line of it, but I''ve used it at work with customers many times. It works very well. It totally removes all partitions and writes zeros the drive.

"'Nazrix is cool' -- Nazrix" --Darkmage --Godfree

no prob, just being sarcastic. i used it. it''s still 636k. which scares me, cuz i KNOW that i had 640k there before. especially if my system was totally wiped at that point.
so, if that little assembly code or master boot sector trick with fdisk doesn''t work,and i KNOW that it was 640k before, i have no clue as to what''s causing it to be that way.

i''m gonna email dell, see if they can fill me in on anything.
anyway, i installed 98 back on. hopefully it really is nothing serious, like all you guys say.

thanks everyone. well, i mean, all the helpful ones. you know who you are.

a2k