Can't see c: drive but BIOS recognizes Hard Drive???

[pamperry]

I am trying to piece together a Pentium 166 and whenever I put a hard drive in the system, it shows in the BIOS that it has recognized the hard drive but stops from booting completely at LI (no idea what that may be). Then I tried booting from a boot floppy and I can see the a: drive and e: drive (CD ROM) but it doesn't recognize the c: drive at all (I've also tried d, f etc just in case but no luck). Any suggestions? I've tried a few hard drives so it probably isn't a bad drive. Help............

 

[butchrecon]

Have you tried Using FDISK? Use FDISK to see if there are partitions on the drives? You can find FDISk on a Win98 boot floppy. James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[edfair]

You are trying to boot Linux and crashing at LiLO?
Used drive?
Sounds like you need to reload an operating system from scratch, maybe even with a low level format or a zero fill to clean out stuff. You'll have to give better info. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.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.

 

[butchrecon]

I agree with edfair. We need more info. James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[pamperry]

I tried to fdisk c: and it still wouldn't recognize the drive. I am not sure what was on the hard drive but it could very well have been Linux. How do I access the drive to fdisk or format it?

 

[Guest_imported]

Boot up on a floppy and then use something like DRIVEPRO to do a partial low level format. Then you should be able to use FDISK.

ROGER - GØAOZ.

 

[edfair]

Or use one of the zero fill programs, or the debug blaster that is posted in the FAQ, either here or in hardware. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.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.

 

[pamperry]

I tried using a low level formatting tool and it said it couldn't see the hard drive and to check jumpers and cable configs. I did and all seems fine to me. Could it be a dead hard drive? Why upon boot up does it say I have a Quantum drive and all the specs but then can't access the drive? Help.........

 

[edfair]

Response from the drive during POST is the controller, attempting the boot is from the platters.
Can be a dead drive. Or a contolled spin up that isn't happening, or of dying. But the LI that shows indicates that the drive is spinning at the first. More likely, needing the boot sector cleaned off.
I misdirected you. The zero fill isn't posted in the FAQs.
I know ALT255 posted in the thread so you might search fro him in the hardware forum (he was really involved at that time so you may have to wade through a lot). And the thread has been cross referenced at least once there, so searching for fdisk should also hit on it.
Or you could use the manufacturer's utility. Ed Fair
efair@atlnet.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.

 

[tlcscousin]

Also A boot with a startup disk and fdisk /mbr will wipe the master boot record and will remove the lilo boot.
Then run the format.

 

[31055]

PP
did u check whether the HD has already been formatted in NTFS, if so use PQmagic to reformat the HD