Harddrive Problem

[RBOArmenian]

Hi,
I have a dual boot(W98 and W2000 Server) PC. I defragmented my 30 Gig Maxtor Hardrive using W2000 defragmentation utility but it crashed the drive when I exited the defrag program. I couldn't reboot anymore. I had couple of partitions on the drive and I believe I have lost them both. I Installed a new harddrive as Primary Master and installed W98 OS on it. I changed the original Harddrive as Secondary Master. I have a CDWriter and DVD Reader as my two Slave drives.When I boot the PC the BIOS recognizes all my drives properly including the damaged one but the operating system doesn't pick it up because I don't see the harddrive in Windows Explorer. I used Notron Utilities and it still doesn't pickup the second drive. Any ideas?

Thanks,

 

[Freestone]

Were the partitions on the original harddrive formatted as NTFS?

 

[Lemon13]

@Freestone has a point there, native w98 cant see ntfs formatted drives.
either get ntfs for w98 (the freeware cant write on ntfs but is able to read it), or get knoppix (linux bootable on cd, no install and can read ntfs and write to w98, dont try to write ntfs), or put it as a sec. hdd in another computer running ntfs (you have to have admin rights to take ownership).

 

[RBOArmenian]

Thank you guys for your quick reply. I have been using FAT32 for both W98 and W2000 operating systems so I could copy data files back and forth. Couple of years ago I had problems with my W2000(NTFS) installation so I reformatted the partition and installed W2000 server as FAT32. I have tried three different utilities to fix the problem but I haven't had any success. Eventhough my BIOS indicates that I have proper setup but I can't see the harddrive after I reboot my PC. Could it mean there is something physically wrong with the harddrive, like a head crash?

Thanks,

 

[Freestone]

I suspect a partition table problem. Does FDISK recognize the drive at all? Do either of these utilities recognize the drive?

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery

GetDataBack - Do-it-yourself Data Recovery Software

 

[TekTippy4U]

possiblilty;
Hook bad drive as Primary master (need to do this to run the command or fdisk won't apply the MBR switch to drive)....boot from 98 Boot Disk or CDROM , and run Fdisk /mbr that'sall -- then unhook it and and reattach as Slave to Primary.unhook all that DVD CD stuff for now.

TT4U

Notification:
These are just my thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions.
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