Has my harddisk crashed?

[Bimalaggarwal]

I have Compaq Presario 7464 (bought in 2000).

When I boot this pc, I get the error message 'Operating system not found on any of the disks' after the
memory count.
I enter the bios to check and change(if required) the boot order, but I cannot see the chard disk drive (c in the bios setup.

Is my harddisk dead? What tests should I make to be sure that it is still okay?

Do I need to change the battery? My battery is relatively new.

 

[ricpinto]

It's nothing to do with the BATTERY, if you think so then remove the BATTERY and use only the AC Adapter. Anyway how can you test the HDD if the BIOS can't regognized it. Anyway you boot from DOS and run fdisk. If the error is something like no disk found then most probably the HDD is gone. Or maybe you can take out the HDD and plug in to another notebook and see what happens, alternatively you can put another hdd to you notebook as a test. From there you can isolate the problem. I wish you luck..

 

[Seaspray0]

If the bios doesn't see the hard drive, it is most likely bad. You can also check by running fdisk from a 98 boot floppy. It will return an error if it doesn't find a hard drive. Check with compaq before purchasing a new hard drive. Some of the laptop bios's only support drives up to a certain size.

 

[Bimalaggarwal]

Where can I get the 98 boot floppy? I downloaded one from

http://www.bootdisk.com,

but it is read as a non-system disk.

 

[MSEDDE]

If you have DSL or a fast internet connection I can send you the files you need to put on a floppy for a boot disk. Other than that, if you know someone that has Win98, ask them for a boot disk.

If you have a Win2k cd and the Notebook has a CDROM then just boot to it and it will let you find the Hard Drive if it isn't dead.

I would say however that the Hard Drive is probably dead as a hammer.

ME

 

[Bimalaggarwal]

Thanks ME.

I did not extract the bootable files from the downloaded Win98 boot .exe file yesterday.Hence my problem -;
.
I have done the same now and will try in the evening.
Will let you know tomorrow. Hope I have success today.

 

[ricpinto]

99.9 % your HDD is dead. I give 1% chance for the fdisk test to have a good result. My argument is that any OS (Linux,windows,DOS, etc) depends on the BIOS of what hardware they are going to get. So if the BIOS says no HDD, OS will definitely agrees. The 1% chance is for erroneous reporting of the BIOS let's say a bug but then again it's 1% chance and if this happens then update your BIOS to the latest version. Again, I wish you luck.

 

[Bimalaggarwal]

I could boot my pc with the win98 boot disk.
But I cannot perform 'SYS c:' operation and I get the 'Invalid Command' error' message.

During bootup (with the boot floppy), I also get the message that FAT or FAT32 does not exist on the hard disk.

Do I have to format the hard disk? I cannot afford to do so as I have some critical information/files which I need.
Is there a way wherein I save my files/applications before I do the format? Also, is the format operation mandatory to solve this problem, or there exists another solution??

 

[ricpinto]

So the Harddisk is there, great. Most probably your HDD is NTFS format. Anyway b4 we jump to any conclusion can you post the result of the FDISK. (just type "fdisk" then "Enter&quot.

 

[Bimalaggarwal]

I get the message 'Invalid Command'

Also fdisk /status gives me the same message.

 

[mrpctc]

----QUOTE-----------------------------------------
I get the message 'Invalid Command'

Also fdisk /status gives me the same message.
----END OF QUOTE----------------------------------

Your getting this message because you need to have the executable file "FDISK.EXE" on your 98 bootable floppy. Also, if you want to transfer the system files over from the floppy to the hard drive, you need the file "SYS.COM" copied to the bbot disk as well. Although, if your hard drive has 2000 on it, transfering the 98 system files might not be a good thing to do.

Keith

 

[Bimalaggarwal]

I have the fdisk.exe in the boot disk.
The sys.com, however is missing.
I will download this and try again.

 

[ricpinto]

You don't need sys.com. What is the result of the Fdisk.exe command? type a:\fdisk then Enter