Hard disk access denied

[RustyDWO]

When starting the PC it does the POST and then asks for the operating system.
This happened before and after waiting a while a reboot solved the problem.
Now however it doesn't.
I looked with chkdsk but it can't read the disk.
I looked with fdisk and then the C: drive (pri-dos and Active) shows as an UNKNOWN SYSTEM.
I even tried the old fashion NDD but no access.
Does anybody know how to solve this problem?

Thanks

 

[techkiwi]

Try going into BIOS and seeing if it can detect your hard disk drive. Sounds like it could be on the way out...

 

[pudda]

Pull your cover off and check for the obvious, a loose ribbon going to the HDD/mobo. BIOS lost your drive and this is the simplest to check...

The test continues...

 

[RustyDWO]

OK, lets rule out some obvious replies to this!
The following is what has been performed or tested:
1) The PC can read another HD
2) Cabling is checked, swapped, rechecked and approved
3) PC is accessable from A:\ and than also D-part from HD
4) "fdisk /mbr" has been executed
5) Bad HD as slave from goog HD does not work

Hope this contributes to specific answers.

Thanks

 

[dementg]

I'm not sure I can figure this out, but I have a couple questions:

Is the C: drive formatted as NTFS or some other non-FAT format? If so, then booting from a floppy wouldn't ever let you access it, even if it was actually good.

Is the D: partition (which is working) part of the same drive that you're having trouble with, or is it a physically separate drive?

You say bad HD as slave from good HD doesn't work. Do you mean you booted an OS from a good drive, which is capable of reading the filesystem on the bad drive, but the bad drive still didn't show up? Just the C: partition didn't show, or *nothing* from that drive showed? I don't remember for sure if Windows NT/2k/XP automatically shows the extra drive letters when you plug in a new drive like that. It might have to be added in Disk Management. If you're using Win9x/Me, then it should have showed up automatically.

Sounds like your cabling and drive controller are apparently working, so if you consistently can't get anything from the drive, then I'd suspect the drive. If its just one partition on the drive that can't be accessed, then I'd guess the partition got corrupted somehow. If that's the case, you could delete the partition and reinstall the OS, but really the drive isn't trustworthy anymore if that's the situation.

I'm not sure how old that ndd version is that you used, but its a big mistake to use any Norton disk tools from the DOS/Win3.x days. I did that many years ago on a Win95 system, and ended up trashing my filenames. Lots of files got truncated to 8.3 filenames and I had to reinstall.

 

[RustyDWO]

Dementg, answers to youre questions:

C: and D: are phisically one one disk as two partitions.
I think its formatted as FAT32 because on C: the OS Windows98se is installed.
I have had access to the D; part after booting with the reque floppy and then just type C: and D:.

Yes, when I used the bad disk as a slave, the OS was from a good disk and also here I used W98.

Thanks for the reply

 

[SYAR2003]

Please download this partition table editor .

http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/

Install it .
Run it and select the disk , write down the partition table values.

Note ! Dont klick on the red x in front of the partition value ( it's for deleting the partition ) .
It't will ask you to confirm , so dont worry if
clicking by mistake .

Don't use it to change anything
Report back the type value returned for the defective
partition ,and the other thats working for the troubled disk .

If it's stated as unknown the partition type the type
bytes can have change from 0C ( FAT32x ) to an unknown value .


SYAR

 

[RustyDWO]

Dear SYAR2003

I dont have access to the disk so for the disk in question so I cannot run this windows program Beeblebrox on it.
Is there another way?

In the mean time however I was trying something with a few old HDD's and ended up with a similar problem.
HDD1 as master with W98 and running fine.
HDD2 as slave (on same IDE slot) and visible.

Start PC with start-up disk and running fdisk.
Selected HDD2 and deleted PRI DOS part.
Cconfigured EXT DOS part and after a number of checks it made full disk extended dos partion.
After this I tried to configure logical stations but it stoppen at the check and after a long break I cancelled the instruction with ESC. Then it appeared that the SYSTEM of the disk was UNKNOWN and access to that this was lost.

What is it that I'm doing wrong here?
Or is it the machine? It's an IBM pentiumIII

 

[SYAR2003]

I supposed as you stated:
"Yes, when I used the bad disk as a slave, the OS was from a good disk and also here I used W98."

You could run the utility from that install for
then inspect the bad disk if its connected to IDE as slave .

 

[RustyDWO]

Dear SYAR2003,

With those 2 old HDD's I tried running the program but it only sees the first HDD.
The second invisible drive is not shown.
Please advise about this program.

Btw, while searching this forum I came accross 602-630227 that looks like the same problem but also witout solution.

 

[SYAR2003]

Under disk information , hit the drop down button
and select physical disk 1 (slave)
Physical disk 0 (master)

 

[RustyDWO]

SYAR2003,

Sorry but that program does not see the slave drive.
In the meantime I even tried WIPEOUT but this can't reach the HDD either.

Anything left to do?

 

[SYAR2003]

If it as slave is not recognized in bios , well
not much chance then i guess .
If it was detected in the bios the partition editor should se it.

 

[RustyDWO]

Since its IBM the POST does not show.
But, suddenly it showed again and as before as if the PRI DOS was never deleted.
However doing th esame excersize with fdisk came again to a halt in creating the EXT DOS part. It keeps verifying integrity over and over agian.

 

[RustyDWO]

Well, after many attempts of integrity checks, it seems a lote of the HDD is bad because it returns with a smaller availability then the label says.
Even logical drives can be created
BUT when trying to format track 0 is reported damaged and it refuses to continue.

Is there a way to overcome this?

 

[dementg]

It sounds to me like the drive might be physically bad. I'm not sure what else to suggest, but if you're ready to throw the drive away, you might try going in the BIOS and doing a low-level format (which the manufacturers warn you not to do). This supposedly can sometimes recover a drive with problems like this. At least that's what I've read, I've never actually tried it on a bad drive before. Chances are that even if it recovers the drive, it will only be temporarily. I wouldn't trust it anymore.

If you try a low-level format, I would unplug the other hard drives and only boot with the bad drive connected, just to make sure you don't pick the wrong drive by mistake. The BIOS might call the procedure "Initialize Disk" or something like that. It took many hours when I did this on a 40MB drive on a 386 computer a long time ago, I've never tried it on anything newer than that. Low level formatting is risky and can ruin the drive, and I don't consider myself very knowledgeable about it. I only offer the idea to consider if you get to the point where you have no other choice.

I'm not familiar with the program SYAR mentioned, so if you can somehow get that program to see the drive there might be a better way to deal with this.