Re: Hosed my system/fdisk can't read disk drive now.
On Thu, Feb 24, 2000 at 10:03:13AM -0600, ktb wrote:
> "Allan M. Wind" wrote:
> >
> > On 2000-02-24 09:40:21, ktb wrote:
> >
> > > I've pulled a real bone head deal it seems. I decided to partition the
> > > HD on my new system so that I could put both Windows 98 and Slink on
> > > it. I tried using fdisk under "dos" but it wouldn't let me delete the
> > > current partition so I used the Slink installation disk and cfdisk to
> > > partition my HD. I cut the disk in half and added one partition "Win95
> > > FAT32 (LBA)" which was what it was before except that it took up the
> > > whole disk. I marked it as bootable. I then attempted to install W98
> > > and got the message "no HD found." I went into the bios setup and the
> > > disk can't be detected. I switched it to "auto" but no improvement. I
> > > used the Slink installation cd again and found I get the message "FATAL
> > > ERROR: Cannot read disk drive Press any key to exit fdisk." I have no
> > > installation disks for this HD. It is the HD that came with the
> > > system. What the heck do I do now?
> >
> > You did use something to resize that win98 partition with besides
> > cfdisk, right?
>
> No I didn't.
Ouch.
Did you have anything on the disk initially, or not? The way I read
your post (portions deleted), you didn't.
If you did, you're fairly much hosed, though it's possible to recover a
partition table from memory (yours, not the computer's). I've done
this. It's an exhilarating experience.
If you didn't, I'd boot a Linux distro (probably a micro distro like
Tom's Root/Boot or Linuxcares BBC), and create something like:
/dev/hda1: Win98 ~1.5 - 2 GB
/dev/hda2: Linux / (30 - 100 MB)
/dev/hda3: linux swap (1* memsize, to 128 MB)
/dev/hda3: Extended
/dev/hda4: /var 200-500 MB
/dev/hda6: /usr 2+ GB
/dev/hda7: /home ++
(I'm a fan of partitions <g> -- and actually have more on my home system,
though it has three fixed disks )
You should locate a bootable DOS floppy and try to access the hard drive
at this point. You can then install an mbr (DOS: FDISK /MBR), install
Windows, install Linux, install LILO, and add a boot stanza for Windows.
See the various multiboot HOWTOs.
--
Karsten M. Self (kmself@ix.netcom.com)
What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
SAS for Linux: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/SAS/SAS4Linux.html
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