Repair an "Invalid media descriptor"?

[sethfp]

What is an "Invalid media descriptor"? Can it be repaired?

[bookmarkmns]

What is an "Invalid media descriptor"? Can it be repaired?

More details are needed to help. A quick Google search looked promising.

[confus-ed]

Ok so we'll all go googling then to find out what looks promising

The Media Descriptor on a MS-DOS formatted disk is a single byte which has a code describing the type of disk (other file systems can have 2 or 3 bytes even). This Media Descriptor is used by the computer's operating system to decide how to access the contents of the disk. The Media Descriptor is the 16th byte in the boot sector of the disk.

There are 9 Media Descriptor codes defined in my reference manual, 0xF0 and 0xF8 through 0xFF. The Media Descriptor for a hard drive is 0xF8.

When your hard drive "crashed", some information stored on the disk was corrupted. Tools like scandisk, that check the disk for logical consistency, first look to see that the Media Descriptor is one of the allowed types and that the type makes sense for the drive. In your case, the Media Descriptor is almost certainly not 0xF8 like it should be.

Unfortunately, you can't just change the Media Descriptor and have everything be fine. Most likely, more than just the one byte on your disk was corrupted, and the Media Descriptor is just a symptom. In order to really repair your filesystem, I suggest that you look into disk utility programs....

But I can't make suggests without as said more info at least the file system concerned would be a start.

btw I added the bit in blue to the quote, as it was the best I could find, to 'extend' the general method for all filesystems (so the hex values will be different etc)

[bookmarkmns]

Ok so we'll all go googling then to find out what looks promising



But I can't make suggests without as said more info at least the file system concerned would be a start.

btw I added the bit in blue to the quote, as it was the best I could find, to 'extend' the general method for all filesystems (so the hex values will be different etc)

[sethfp]

More details are needed to help. A quick Google search looked promising.

Win98se with FAT32 partitions.
"Partition 1 (18GB) Result: Invalid media descriptor"

[confus-ed]

Don't get carried away & flood us with too much info there then sethfp !

M$'s take on this - Detailed Explanation of FAT Boot Sector - Q140418

So I think either random crash or virus ? Checked for viruses ? Boot sector viruses can be particularly bad news & very often mean you've not much choice other than to fish out what data you want, clean up individual files recovered & then clean up your drive with a zero fill utility & start all over again

In answer to the original question then .. Yes (& I already more than answered the 'what is' bit ) - but I suspect we are about to have a few more supplementaries ..

[bookmarkmns]

More information would help here, When and where does the message appear?

First off you need do the full virus scan. Eliminate one area simply.
Can you scandisk the system?
Second i would look at the following link which talks you through a number of options.
http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd...Corruption.htm

Will post later after taking daughter, Amy - 7, out for sparklers.