Can't partition IDE hard drive

[ajonate]

I have a 40 gig Seagate IDE hard drive, model ST340810A, that I can't get going. It won't seem to take a partition.

The BIOS detects the drive fine. I'm using a cable select cable with the jumper in the 'enable cable select' position.

Using the Seagate DiscWizard utility I am able to partition but Win98 fdisk can't see it. I have tried doing a zero write to the entire hard drive and partitioning again with DiscWizard, but fdisk still can't see a partition.

Once I did a zero write and format with DiscWizard, then then tried to install WinXP. XP formatted the drive (said it did anyway) and copied the files to the hard drive but the drive couldn't boot. Again, Win98 fdisk couldn't see a partition.

With the Win98 fdsik utility I try to set a primary DOS partition and it sits on verify drive at 0% and doesn't move.

I'm beginning to suspect a MBR virus. Any thoughts on how to revive this drive?

 

[ajonate]

The new mainboard I'm using is a ECS KT600-A. I don't recall first mainboard, but I do recall that it had a 1.1 gig Duron and ran fine for years before this happened. Transplanting the the hard drive to the new mainboard also transferred the symptoms.

I can't imagine that contemporary ECS mainboards would have non-standard IDE controllers. I have never had difficulty with them before.

The seagate utility (DiscWizard) can zero write a hard drive, set partitions or copy a partition. I got it to do the zero write.

 

[garebo]

How about trying that spinrite program? I bought it a month ago but havent used it yet, so i cant help with that, but others here can.
If you deal with a lot of pcs then it may be worthwhile having the program?


Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[mainegeek]

ajonate,

"WinXP does seem to try formatting after I 'prepare the disk' for WinXP using the seagate disk utility, but can't write to the hard drive and reboot."

Set the drive as master and by itself wih no other hard drives attached.

Re-run auto detections from the bios and then boot with the WinXP cd.

The drive may still have a small extended partition on it that may have been created by some restore software such as HP or other. The ones that I have seen are FAT12.

Delete ALL partitions using the XP cd and then reboot again with the XP cd.

Verify that the drive has no partitions on it and take note of the total drive size.

Create one partition and allocate the full space to it using NTFS and use full format.