Can't get FDISK to work

[spasserium]

I'm trying to FDISK and format my hard drive, but everytime I reboot after running FDISK, the active primary disappears, preventing me from formatting it.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,

Mark

 

[edfair]

Have you looked at the partition before you reboot to see if it is there?
And trying to fdisk with the same version that you are trying to format with?


Ed Fair
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.

 

[spasserium]

The partition is not there before I reboot; it's like it doesn't "take."

How can I can if fdisk and format are the same version?

Mark

 

[edfair]

If it isn't there before you reboot, it sure won't be there after you reboot.

This has the symptoms of a virus. Suggest that you try a fdisk /mbr after a power recycle, using a new bootdisk if you have one available. Another alternative is a zerofill/lowlevel format and fdisk with a new bootdisk.

Ed Fair
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.

 

[spasserium]

One last question: what is & how do you do a zero fill/low level format and fdisk?

Thanks.

Mark

 

[edfair]

Generally at the manufacturer's website. Supplied as part of a diagnostic set.

Ed Fair
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.

 

[spasserium]

OK, I've been able to fdisk and format my hard drive (a couple of times). Then, I seem to successfully load win98. However, and here's the problem, after I turn off the laptop and/or reboot for whatever reason, I get a message saying that there's no bootable sector on the hard drive; F1 to try again or F2 for setup. Finally, not being able to get anything to work, I'm forced to start from the beginning again, using a bootable floppy.

In terms of a virus, how can there be a virus when the hard drive is repartitioned and reformatted? Isn't that the purpose of a clean install? In any event, how can I use virus checking software when I don't have reliable access to windows or, for that matter, to the hard drive? Does such software exist?

Finally, I've run scandisk after successfully (but temporarily) installing win98 and the hard drive seems fine.

If anyone can make sense of all of this, please advise.

Many TIA,

Mark

 

[edfair]

There are times when you have to have clean boot disks, clean memory, and clean hard drives. And if you don't have a new boot disk you may be contaminating the hard drive anew. And if you haven't started from a power-off you can have a virus memory resident contaminating everything.
It can be a royal pain, even for those who fight the battles every day.

As far as the current problem, use fdisk and see if the partition is active. If not, make it so.
If needed, the next step is to see if you can make the hard drive bootable in DOS. From the A> prompt "sys c:". Then reboot with no floppy. If you can't make it boot from DOS you probably can't make it boot from windows.
Then reload your windows again. I would suggest loading it from the hard drive but that depends on whether you can get access to the hard drive and CD at the same time from floppy DOS.




Ed Fair
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.

 

[spasserium]

One last question: It seems that I lose a bootable partition when I turn off the computer. When I turn it back on, it's gone, as if I never fdisk'ed and formatted. Does this clarify anything?

If not, I think I'm giving up and will turn it over to someone more knowledgeable than I.

Thanks,

Mark

 

[wolluf]

Ed's pointed you at one possible cause (if you have a boot sector virus - that's why he has suggested getting a clean boot disk (write protected) to run fdisk /mbr. That should remvove any such virus - and the write protection will prevent any virus on the hard drive infecting the floppy (this is how boot viruses generally spread).

Might just be worth checking that the drive is connected properly. I've had similarish symptoms from a desktop machine when IDE cable was slightly damaged (I know laptop connector is different, but...)

 

[spasserium]

One thing I forgot to mention. Whenever I fdisk and check fdisk status, the SYSTEM field is blank; it doesn't say FAT or FAT32 - it's just blank. What if anything does that mean?

Mark

 

[spasserium]

I'm sorry to be such a dolt. In "Display partition information," the "System" field is not blank, but acutally says "UNKNOWN"

 

[0105Quircus]

The partition wont be there before reboot, because thats what the reboot is for...making sure DOS and the BIOS see the new partition(s)

 

[mainegeek]

Its unknown until you format it.

 

[0105Quircus]

spasserium, it is meant to say 'unknown' until reboot. Then you format it with large disk support to make it fat32

 

[Enkrypted]

As mentioned before, I would obtain a copy of the manufacturers diagnostic disk from their website. Run the diags on the drive to see if it reports any errors. If not, I recommend running the low-level format(zero write) utility on the disk and then try to recreate the partition again and see if it holds it's settings...

Enkrypted
A+

 

[RustyDWO]

0105Quircus,

How to format a disk that is not seen by fdisk, fdisk /mbr nor wipeout.
I know it stated UNKNOWN when deleting the PRI DOS and changing that to EXT DOS as a slave HDD. However when trying to create logical drives the HDD became unaccessible.

See my thread 602-702436
Any help is welcome

 

[hardrock49]

i would suggest getting another copy of the boot disk and before inserting it make sure that it is write protected then do your fdisk and format.