dead hard drive...

tapper1999 · 02-11-2003, 12:43 PM

Does any one know about reviving dead hard drives?
Situation:
I have this 40 gb hd that I was installing win98 on, it originally had xp on it but was changing converting it for a different pc project. I formatted the drive and then started the install process. After getting the drive completly setup with win98 I restarted the pc and screen came up with non system disk. i checked the drive with fdisk and the drive is still there but it can't recieve a format in dos7 or on other windows machines.

any help would greatful.

grandamp3 · 02-11-2003, 12:47 PM

contact the manufacturer and get an rma to send it back. They'll send you a new drive, sometimes even better one. Ive done this with several drives and all turned out well in the end. As far as reviving the one you have, I wouldnt mess with it, not worth it.

GRUNT · 02-11-2003, 01:01 PM

If you can see the partitions from Fdisk.
The drive should be ok??

I had a problem with converting a disk from Linux to dos.

I could make the partitions, but could not boot, it would still find
the Linux boot info.

I use from DOS Fdisk /MBR.

See if that works for you.

John

hijinks21 · 02-11-2003, 01:36 PM

here is a great tip an old tech guy gave to me. Place the drive into the freezer for like 20-30 minutes. Take it out.. let it sit for about 5 then use it. You might get like 30 minutes to an hour of working time. I'd say that's your last resort though. It has worked for me.

CA 3000GT · 02-11-2003, 04:47 PM

Whoa!
Dont put that disk in the freezer quite yet!
(thats a cool tip though... Im gonna remember that in case I hear of a drive dying... do you know how that works in terms of hardware? I mean, if the heads have crashed into the platter... how could freezing help... though I think I have heard mention of that technique before someplace.... )

We got 2 situations here
1) Disk heads crashed into the platter, this is how disks typically "die", you will often hear a grinding noise on these disks..

2) Incorrectly formated/partitioned disk, I think this is what you have... Im gonna guess that in the install process, some essential part of the file system was overwritten..

I would try re partitioning the disk, then re format it.... perhaps attach it to another win98 machine to do that... or win98 programs to do it.

best of luck

Raas · 02-12-2003, 02:30 AM

maybe the disk is in NTFS instead of FAT32 and that's why you can't see it in DOS ????

just shooting possibilities here
Greetz,

jstrain · 02-12-2003, 07:40 AM

regarding the freezer, usually how this works is if the spindle mechanism has seized, the cold lets everything contract to the point that the drive can spin up again. obviously, this does not work in all situations (dead electronics, physical crash).

Aaron Cake · 02-12-2003, 08:16 AM

Has anyone who answered even worked on a computer before? Obviously not, since you don't know even the basics of logical throubleshooting. We need a LOT more information before we can recommend an action.

FIRST, ignore all advice in this thread except for CA 3000GT.

Second, run FDISK and delete all partitions. Then create a primary DOS partition, reboot with a boot disk in the drive, then FORMAT C: /S. After the format goes through (did it try to "recover allocation units"? if so, you have a bad drive) reboot without your boost disk. Should dump you at a C prompt. Now go about reinstalling Win98.

Note that this will completely erase the disk.

MP3DUB · 02-12-2003, 11:27 AM

But if cant see any partitions (ntfs/hfs/linux) fdisk /mbr will delete the master boot record and any possible partitions, and then fdisk to create partitions and then format. also, the thing that no one else has asked is physical connections and bios configuration. is everything in snugly? does bios see the hd? is it set to boot from the hd? (not lan or cd or floppy).

ddt · 02-12-2003, 11:51 AM

yeah, really! I had this happen before. I switched out the IDE cable and all was well.

Don't start with drastic measures. Work your way there.

Aaron Cake · 02-13-2003, 08:10 AM

FDISK /MBR does NOT destroy all partitions. It only rewrites the master boot record. Normally, this is safe. However, if the partition table is bad, then it may accidentally destroy the partitions.

If the BIOS can see the drive, and it doesn't have any bad sectors and is spinning, then you are looking at a logical problem, not a physical problem.

MP3DUB · 02-13-2003, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Aaron Cake
FDISK /MBR does NOT destroy all partitions. It only rewrites the master boot record. Normally, this is safe. However, if the partition table is bad, then it may accidentally destroy the partitions.

If the BIOS can see the drive, and it doesn't have any bad sectors and is spinning, then you are looking at a logical problem, not a physical problem.

It does effectively delete the partitions, as the mbr contains the partition information. If you mean that it doesnt zero out the entire hd, this is true. You could also get a "low level format" tool from your hd manufacturer and try that (and no, the "low level format" utities don't really low level format anymore, they just zero the drive).

Rob Withey · 02-13-2003, 03:04 PM

No it doesn't:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...B;en-us;q69013

"Fdisk has an undocumented parameter called /mbr that causes it to write the master boot record to the hard disk without altering the partition table information."

Rob

tapper1999 · 02-13-2003, 06:23 PM

I used the fdisk /mbr method. When i did this the partitions were saved. Now that I think of it this drive was a linux hd before. Everything is good now.

Aaron Cake · 02-14-2003, 08:38 AM

See, told you.