Re: Hosed my system/fdisk can't read disk drive now.
On Thu, Feb 24, 2000 at 03:03:52PM -0600, ktb wrote
> kmself@ix.netcom.com wrote:
> >
> > 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.
>
> I had stuff on the disk but I meant to wipe it clean. What my problem
> seems to be coming down to is my computer will no longer auto detect my
> HD's. I had one HD (primary) with Windows 98 and (secondary) with
> Slink. Now neither of my HD's are detected. I went into the bios
> settings and selected "drive auto detect" and it shows nothing is
> there. I manually set them to "auto" and still nothing is seen. I just
> don't understand how creating a new partition valid in the eyes of
> windows or not prevents my bios from detecting that there are HD's
> there?
It won't. If the BIOS doesn't see your drive then you need to fix
that before any fdisk or partition-recovery software can work on it.
Likely culprits are incorrect jumpers, missing power cables, and
bad or misfitted ribbon cables.
If you've had your case open, re-check that all your cables are
seated correctly and verify that you don't have any that are
"off-by-one-row-of-pins". Verify that the problem drive and any
others on the same cable have power cables connected, and all
pins are correctly seated (some drives will operate after a
fashion with no power cable, presumably running off power sucked
through the ribbon cable; sometimes when you insert a power
cable the pin on the drive pushes its mate out of the power
connector shell, rather than seating itself comfortably in the
socket). If you have a spare ribbon cable, try replacing the one
you're using now (if all else fails, get a known good one and do
that anyway).
If you've re-cabled or re-installed your drives, verify the
jumper settings and try using the problem drive as a single
master: some drives have problems acting as the master for some
slaves, and vice versa.
HTH,
John P.
--
huiac@camtech.net.au
john@huiac.apana.org.au
"Oh - I - you know - my job is to fear everything." - Bill Gates in Denmark
Reply to: