Hard Drive Problem 3

[winzip]

Hi!

I just received an HP PC that I know used to run Windows ME. The person who gave it to me said the hard drive had a lot of bad sector problems and she tried to wipe it out (the hard drive) and overwrite it with Windows 98 SE.

Now the PC won't start - saying there's no OS found on the hard drive. When I first got it, even the BIOS was showing there was no primary master hard disk. Then I looked inside and found out that the hardware switch setting was incorrect (which makes me wonder how it worked before!) Anyway, I changed the switch setting and now the BIOS recognizes the hard disk. But I still can't get it to work. I can boot from a Win 98 bootdisk on the floppy drive but I can't FDISK - it says no fixed disk present. When I try to setup Win98 from the CD ROM drive after booting with CD-ROM support from the floppy boot disk, it says it can't setup Win98 because there is a problem with the hard disk.

Can anybody help please?

Thanks!

Winzip

 

[edfair]

Time to run some diagnostics from the manufacturer of the drive.
And possibly the zero fill to insure that the drive is ready to take an OS.

Ed Fair
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.

 

[wolluf]

Get another hard drive? (sounds like its dead)

If you want to spend time - try getting drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility (most have them on their website) to check it out (may respond to a binary zero fill) - but I'd not want to put anything I wanted to keep on it, even if I got it running!

 

[winzip]

Thanks for the quick responses. They sound reasonable - may not be worth making this thing run when it will be suspect anyway... you're right - I wouldn't want to keep anything in it.

If I buy let's say a 30 or 40 GB Maxtor drive, can I make it my primary hard drive?

Thanks again!

Winzip

 

[NightHawke]

Yes you can make any drive you buy a primary (master drive).
And this does smell like a dying drive and needs to be taken out and retired.. Maybe some nice wind chimes made out of the platters..

 

[edfair]

Slap the stepper magnets against the metal case. Handy for storing screws as you remove them.

Ed Fair
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.

 

[winzip]

Great ideas guys! I appreciate the tips and support!

Winzip