Harddisk or motherboard

[braddds]

I got a 6.3 gb HD that is acting up!

1 First it reported that the HD failed
2 I checked it with a boot disk and it reported no partition.
3 fdisk said that the partition was there but that a single partition 6.3 gb existed where two partitions were before.
4 I used fdisk/mbr to get it up and running
5 when it booted to Win98 it showed only 1 partition @ 1.85 gb Fat32 with 95% space used, yet PM5 Pro said it was 6.3 gb with 95% space used!
6 I used PM5 Pro to change the cluster size from 4k to 2k and was given a 4 gb c: and 2.3 gb d: when I was finished!
7 I checked the drive with scandisk and Nortons AV 2001.
8 I resized the C: and D: with PM5 Pro and was rewarded with a boot disk problem - HD drive failure!
9 I unhooked the dive and re-attached it and it fired up
10 The result was a c: drive 2.5 gb (I resized it to this) and a d: drive missing half of it's partition
11 Using both dos and Win98 I managed to re-establish the d: drive
12 I found errors during this last process so I ran a full scandisk (twice) on both drives and am still waiting on the results!

I guess my question is does this sound like a motherboard or HardDisk problem...I don't think it is a cable problem as I've never heard of this kind of problem associated with a cable...I mean with a cable it usually works or it dosen't!?

 

[butchrecon]

DO you have any Info on the HDD that you need. I would suggest LOW LEVEL FORMAT the hard drive. Then create a single partition and reinstall 98 and see if you still have problems. If the above solution does not work then It really could be either the HDD has a bad Logic board or the Controller is bad.
Another otion is to put the drive into another system and see if it boots ok and all drives are there. James Collins
Computer Hardware Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

 

[dvannoy]

I agree with butchrecon ...but you may not even need to do a low level format...what I would do is fdisk the drive delete ALL partitions. Boot off a FAT32 boot disk with that version of fdisk and format.com...then create a primary partition say yes to maximize size...donot use any fdisk /??
just use fdisk.exe...once the partition has been created turn off the system..boot from the FAT32 disk again. then type From the A:>FORMAT C: /S then hit enter...

After this is done then install CD-rom drivers for DOS..create a directory called C:>WIN98...then copy ALL cab files onto hard drive and install win98 from HD...If you follow these steps and you still cannot see the entire drive..Then once again I agree with butchrecon check your controller etc...

hope this helps
DVannoy
MIS
A+,Network+,CNA

 

[PSmith]

Hey Braddds,Hows it going I had a 6.4 gig hd from wd did the same thing yours did tried everything.Put drive in another system it worked new drive in other system did not work.To make a long story short it was my drives cable it now works great again..