Data error stops boot-up 1

[doogle]

I have Pc with 1G Athlone CPU and two hard drives. First drive is partitioned C, D, E, and the second is F. OS is win98 2nd ed. On boot up scandisk checks C,D and E but stops on reaching F and says 'data error' on F and then hangs.Tried to reformat F using start up disk only to get the same message again. Work around needed would be very much appreciated

 

[scotilla]

You may have a damaged or incirrectly installed drive. As it has been allocated a drive letter it is probably seen OK in CMOS and correctly assigned as a slave drive but you could run through that again.
Next stage is to get the DM (disc manager) and diagnostic programme from the HDD manufacturer and get that to run both a diagnostic and a format/partitioning

 

[doogle]

Thanks Scotilla, that gives me a starting point.

 

[MA5]

Check to see if your BIOS has the correct information about your drive.
Assuming your drive is not defective, formatting the H/D, fdisk it first
Good luck