I need urgent help about my harddrive!!! 1

[MrProgrammer]

I got an old mainboard with a Pentium 133 MHz CPU. Because my old hard disk was broken down, I bought a new hard disk (Quantum Fireball 20.0 GB) two months ago. But the Bios didn't see it as 20 GB. Instead, the Bios recognized it as 8.4 GB.(Bios is not updatable) Anyway, I formatted it and then I installed Windows 98.

Anyway, today the mainboard was broken, too. So I understood that I shoul update my all system and I did so. The problem has come out from this point. The new system is recognizing it as 20 GB but it doesn't see any partition inside. I mean that the hard disk needs to be repartitioned and then formatted. Otherwise, Windows doesn't see it. On the other hand, there was very important data in the disk and I have to save them. Is there any way to acces the harddisk and read the data without partitioning and formatting it. Is there any program you know for this purpose. In my opinion, there must be such programs. I tried to install the disk as 8.4 GB in Bios but it didn't work. Please help me...

 

[macit]

If you have another hard drive to use as the primary drive, boot from it. Have the drive in question as the second or slave drive. Once your up, you can save out any data that you need (most of the time) and then start over with the drive in question as the primary and repartition it, etc.

 

[kshugart]

STOP! STOP!
Do not reformat or dfisk this hard drive. the information is still there. If you reformat most likely all your information will be overwritten.

Check to see if the partition is active, to do this, run fdisk and check option "4" this will display the partition ionformation. If the primary partition is not active then 'esc' and choose option "2" then set patition 1 to be active. Then reboot. The machine should now boot windows normally.

If you need more help or to retrieve the data from the disk, I maight be able to help as I am a data recovery technician.

 

[MrProgrammer]

I think I couldn't explain the problem exactly. When I choose the "display partition information" in fdisk, I'm getting a message "no partition defined". So, it is not possible to see whether a partition ,which doesn't exist, is active or not..(I mean there is no partition defined). I need a program which can access an unpartitioned hard drive and read from it. Or is there any other way to get the data on the disk's surface....

 

[Guest_imported]

Hello Mr.Programmer,

I am so happy after all DAY working so hard trying to find a way to recover my hard drive. Yes, I had the same problem. My hard drive doesn't recongize the parititon, and I had over 11 gb of files installing inside the hard drive! WHat the hell!!

So I found a solution by using OnTrack EasyRecovery program, Its so amazing and actually saved ALL of my files!! if you need help to recieve the file, I could help you out.

Happy Saving Files!

-Jax

 

[kshugart]

In that case you'll need to rset the drive parameters in BIOS to the exact parameters for the 8.4 GB drive. Windows should see the drive as an 8.4 GB drive if the bios is set correctly.

Sample: cylinders, heads, sectors for bios settings.

 

[Mikem22]

First of all, check that in the General Options (where the hard disks are listed) that the drive is set to LBA. If this option is not there, then the problem is most likely a BIOS limitation. Go to the motherboard manufacturers website and download the BIOS upgrade for your specific motherboard. It is probably a good idea to disconnect any hard drives on the system - just in case.

Many of the 'old' BIOSs had a 8.4 GB limit. This is because of the old CHS translation limitation which is 16384x255x63 = 8.4GB. Most of the new BIOSs (and BIOS updates) use LBA mode.

Mike

MIke Montgomery
technical@mjm.co.uk

http://datarecovery.mjm.co.uk

Professional data recovery from hard disks, floppy disks zip and jaz drives. Free diagnosis and on line quotation system.