Hard drive /partition problems.

[cmswiss]

I have rather a large problem which I need to solve as I need to get some important data of a particular hard drive.

I know what the problem is - basically when the hard drive was setup it was set-up in the BIOS manually, not using the default heads, cyls, and sectors for the drive.

This information has been removed from the BIOS, and subsequently I cannot read the disk as it is now reported by FDISK as a 'non-dos partition'

It definitely is a DOS partition, and I wonder if anyone out there knows of any utility with which I could find the original BIOS settings for the drive.

Any help would be most appreciated as this is very important data I have to retrieve.

Thanks muchly

Cmswiss

 

[Comtech]

Check what it says on the drive, and set it up manually.
You may have to set it up as "Large" or "LBA" as well... Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[cmswiss]

I have tried normal,LBA and large variations. to no avail though.
As I said this was something completely different. none of the auto detections work.

Thanks though.

cmswiss

 

[edfair]

And for those drives that don't have the specs on the label go to the mfgr's website to get it.
You could also install it on a machine with a BIOS that will read the specs. This normally will give you the settings fot all the choices available for the drive. 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.

 

[cmswiss]

OK,
let me make this a little clearer.

The heads, cylinders and sectors settings for the drive are not related in anyway to the mftrs settings, the automatic settings or anything that I could have found out. they are different in such a way that all the standard settings for the drive are wrong. I've tried them all.
I remeber from the dark days before BIOS settings were automatic that you had to know the settings to get the drive detected properly. I also know that you could vary the settings and the drive would still work.
In those days there was a utility that would tell you what settings the drive was set to also.
I'm looking for that sort of utilty now. I've scoured the net for one but come up blank.


Of course my diagnostic may be wrong. if anyone else has any suggestions I would be greateful. remember - the drive used to work before someone else wiped the BIOS settings.

Thanks again.

Cmswiss

 

[edfair]

Norton utilities had something. Also Gibson spinrite if I remember correctly. It has been a long time.
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.

 

[Flags]

Download the Partition Magaic 7.0 demo and run it. It may answer your partion setup.

 

[bogart]

Have you tried plugging it into a working machine as a second drive? I've had luck retrieving info that way depending on the operating system.

 

[user2]

I have ABCDE drives. Now there is no space and the computer is not functioning probably bacause lack of space. How do I make space. Where do I begin after bakup?

 

[edfair]

You would have better response if you made a new post.
Delete temporary files, anything with ~as first charcter, the cache in your browser, could reduce your temp file size.
Size is most critical on c:, you could possibly move stuff from there to d: or e:. Depending on what you have, you can change storage params on cache. You could compress, but I don't advise people to do it. Better to buy a larger drive and reinstall. 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.

 

[Guest_imported]

For cmswiss if your drive is lba {over 540 meg} then in your bios run autodetect hard disk if it is chs than all cyls heads sect first cyls can be no more than 1024 which is a barrier that chs drives have so run under that number
most heads are 6 or less and sectors are 63 or less now run a program called fdisk should be in your startup disk when you start fdisk go directly to 4 which is display hd partition it well tell you how much is used {don't go into any thing else for it will damage your hd for exp user only}
go back to bios and adjust until properly fdisk shows 100% usage most bios have a user input on type 47 you may enter them in there precomp and diskend should be set to zero i have done this to many drive with unknown drive types

or type in your model no. on the hard drive in a search engine like

http://www.dogpile.com

look up specs on that model
that should work or look up drive manager it has a hd autolookup and set your bios {just dont partition or format}
hope this helps ya good luck