Bios suddenly doesn´t detect hard disk

[inegrete]

Hi. I have a Maxtor 20 Gb hard disk and in four months of use no problems were detected. Suddenly today the bios doesn´t recognize the hard drive anymore. I could be a virus or a hard disk fail, I don´t know, but now I´m looking for some tools to rescue the information in the hard disk or to repair the unit. Some of you has one solution or a tip???

Please help me. The information inside the hard disk it´s very useful for my work. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks
Ignacio
inegrete@gmx.net

 

[pc43522]

Can you use a boot up virus diskette? Unfortunately most programs have to be able to get access to the drive. Norton Disk Doctor has been great for me. Of course, backups are good too. I got caught without them before and it was a pain.

 

[svtesan]

dear inegrete ,
all the superb tools like ndd are vain if your bios cant detect the disk.try your disk on someother pc.try replugging it.might be , the cable got loose.if these wont work then most probably your hard disk failed.

 

[tkbigbear]

try removing the jumper on your motherboard to clear cmos and then see if the bios will recognize your hard drive if you can't find the jumper just remove the battery on your mother board for 20 or so seconds put it back in and then see if bios sees hdd.

 

[rayofhope]

I have windows me operating system.
Just added a new [2nd.] hard drive.The bios is fin, it detects the new hard drive but windows me doesn't.
It still shows my drive c:, my cd-rom as drive D;
it doesn't show my second hard drive, altho bios detected it and shows so when I first boot up.
Tried to use the detect hardware profile, no use.

 

[gavrc]

Could be the HDD controller card. There used to be a utility years ago that could bypass the card and access the disks directly. Unfortunately I can't remember the name :-( but I'll have a look for you.
Gav
A problem with your PC??? Never...

 

[FatesWebb]

does the bios detect other drives? have you gone into setup and tried manually setting the settings for the drive? js error; 67 on line; 36 of signature.class

 

[edfair]

ray of hope,
You haven't told up that you fdisk'd or formatted the drive. Both are necessary to get the drive recognised by the OS , even though the BIOS detects it in setup. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Guest_imported]

To rayofhope;

Windows doesn't detect hard drives, it detects partitions. How did you partition and format your second drive? Try booting off of a floppy and running FDISK. Does FDISK see two hard drives? Does it see a DOS partition on each drive? You might want to start a separate thread with your problem on it.

 

[FatesWebb]

well he DID have it partitioned for months of use before...
Also he DID say the bios doesnt detect it... js error; 67 on line; 36 of signature.class

 

[edfair]

Sorry FatesWebb, but you haven't read the entire thread. Or if you read it , you didn't understand what was said.

And while you are at it, why don't you fix your signature. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Guest_imported]

I'm having the same problem, last night realoded Win98 on my PC, it hung twice during the Check Hardware section, and then on the 3rd reboot it won't recognise the hard disks in BIOS, the Hard disks are Ok, can see them on a differennt PC, the BIOS is old. the hard disks have been working for 3 years perfectly ok.

I am assuming that Win98 (SE) has changed an interrupt of something which is now conflicting with the Hard dis controller..

If anyone knows how to clear the bios on a Zenith Z-Station P133 i recon that should clear the problem.

david_m_field@hotmail.com

 

[daweeb]

Hi guys!
I've got a similar problem as "inegrete".
Yesterday I left the computer on so i could sleep with some music. The music was read from disk D:, my second HD, A quantum fireball 20 gb. When I woke up this morning my computer was on standby and didn't respond. I rebooted the computer and then the slave disk was not detected. Not by windows nor bios. I'm running WinME on a PIII 1gHz and it has worked fine with my slave disk for months.
I've tried to change between cable select and slave but it didn't help. I've also tried to unplug it, rebooting, and then plug it in again with no positive effect.
Do you guys know anyway to help me save my data and make the drive working again?..

I'd appreciate any help!

Thank you

David

 

[FatesWebb]

oh sorry ed, I was looking at the origional posters issue, and you were looking at another poster so I was confused.

oh and what you dont like my sig? js error; 67 on line; 36 of signature.class

 

[d80]

Any success? I see only problems here, good advices, but no final solutions. I've got a problem like this too with my pri.sl. 20Gb Fujitsu... Inacurate use of win98 disk defrag on full size partition suspected...

[d80] COL = Crying Out Loud...

 

[nightowl17]

My 30G just did the same thing Tap the HDD while booting and it will boot , the drive has a bad sector on it and when it lands on that spot your BIOS will not detect it , If by tapping it you get to boot go to maxtor site and get ahold of tech support they will send you a new HDD . I had a 30G and they replaced it with a 40G Hope This Helps Solve Your Problem
nightowl17