URGENT! -- invalid media type reading drive c:????? 1

[thecelt]

I have a PC that displays the above message when started (invalid media type)<br>
Booting to a floppy or Windows 98 start up disk does not help, because when I try to sys the c: drive, I recieve the same error message -- &quot;invalid media type reading drive c:&quot;<br>
The only symptoms the PC was displaying prior to this was that it was running a little slower -- I defragged the hard drive, deleted temp and temporary internet files, ane rebooted -- the pc booted normally, although still seemed to run a little slowly.<br>
Upon the next cold boot however, the invalid media type messsage began displaying -- I checked the cables and connections -- all was fine EXCEPT thast there seemed to abe a strange smell coming from the hard disk.....<br>
I have a feeling that the hard disk itself is failing to run correctly (mechanical failure of some sort)<br>
Does anyone agree? Does anyone have any suggestions? There was some extremely important data on this machine, and unfortunately the user never backed it up.....

 

[Tool]

Does the BIOS detect the hard drive?<br>
<br>
Tool

 

[Karl Blessing]

make sure yer not using an old bootdisk, say something that would have FAT16 on the floppy(typical for older win95 bootdisk, or dos), cuz if you boot off a fat16 floppy, you would not be able to see a unhidden Fat32 partition, and in the bios, also set your harddrive to autodetect(set LBA for mode if its bigger than 8 gigs) so that when it boots up it autodetects everytime, so that you dont have to rely on the CMOS to store the parameters(Sometimes it can hold it in memory, but some bios have limits, which prevents from writing the correct info on the cmos table). Even tho it was a Win98 startup disk, i am uncertain if the win98 OS was fat16 before, you used a Fat32 convertor(or maybe not), I do not know what problems you have, but only offering tips, that *might* help. I know this sounds stupid but physically check the connection from the HDD to the motherboard. did you delete any tmp files from the root derectories, or *.log files from the root, some of the files there seem like they have no importances, but ic an think of a few that are actually system files, also the fact that you defraged, which defrag program did you use, the one that came with microsoft or some other 3rd party copany, and do you have partitions on the drive? <p>Karl<br><a href=mailto:kb244@bellsouth.net>kb244@bellsouth.net</a><br><a href=

http://kb244.8m.com>

</a><br>Experienced in , or have messed with : VC++, Borland C++ Builder, VB-Dos, VB1 thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, Borland C++ 3(DOS), Borland C++ 4.5, HTML, ASP(somewhat), QBasic(hehe, yea it was 4.5 too, least i didnt start with COBOL)

 

[thecelt]

i used a third party utility to defrag the HD (Fix it utilities)<br>
<br>
I've used it on other machines with no problems.....<br>
There was only the one partition, the CMOS did detect the drive, and I used a win98 startup disk -- it was always a fat 32 partition (19 gig).....<br>
<br>
I did check the cabling -- everything was fine -- although there seemed to be an &quot;odor&quot; coming from the drive itself when we opened up the box.....<br>
<br>
Thanks for your attention to this guys.....

 

[Alt255]

I hope you have a backup. Your drive may require a re-partition and format. I've seen similar errors when the primary partition has became corrupted.<br>
If your data is indispensible you might look into Power quest's Lost and Found program before (or even after you have formatted). To me, it's an indispensible tool.<br>
<p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href=

http://vorpalware.homestead.com/VorpalHome.html>temporary

Vorpalcom home page</a><br>Send me suggestions or comments on my current software project.

 

[carty]

The drive's gone I'm afraid.

 

[robherc]

If you were noticing much of a smell coming from the drive...I'd HIGHLY recommend buying a new drive after having done all you can to back up the data. <p>-Robherc<br><a href=mailto:robherc@netzero.net>robherc@netzero.net</a><br><a href= shared.freeservers.com/searchmaster.html>SearchMaster Interface...11-in-1</a><br>Wanting to learn Assembler; please e-mail me any tutorials or links for it that are useful to you

 

[thecelt]

We ended up having to send the drive to a data recovery company -- cost = 1500.00! My boss has finally seen the light with regard to having a regular back up schedule..... <br>
<br>
The primary partition was somehow corrupted alright, Alt255 -- perhaps a virus? The techs at the data recovery company said there is no way to know for sure.....

 

[Alt255]

Ahhh, such a fragile thing, the partition table.... The first partition record is just a lonely 16 bytes of data on a disk that can be several billion bytes in size. Losing the correct value in only one of those bytes will result in the &quot;invalid media type error&quot;. Offset 04 (the operating system indicator) signals the media type. Without it, the primary partition becomes unreadable. Even fdisk will refuse to acknowlege its existence.<br>
<br>
For the interested techies out there, here's the data structure that defines the contents of drive C:<br>
<br>
Offset&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Description<br>
00&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;boot indicator<br>
01&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;partition start head<br>
02&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;partition start sector<br>
03&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;partition start track<br>
04&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;operating system indicator<br>
05&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;partition end head<br>
06&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;partition end sector<br>
07&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;partition end track<br>
08&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;sectors preceding partition<br>
0C&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;length of partition in sectors <p> <br><a href=mailto: > </a><br><a href=

http://vorpalware.homestead.com/VorpalHome.html>temporary

Vorpalcom home page</a><br>Send me suggestions or comments on my current software project.

 

[Karl Blessing]

next time i recomend having least 2 HDD, for highly needed data, shadow the infomatino(same contents are on two drives), or use one of them for compressed backups of only the content you need <p>Karl<br><a href=mailto:kb244@bellsouth.net>kb244@bellsouth.net</a><br><a href=

http://kb244.8m.com>

</a><br>Experienced in , or have messed with : VC++, Borland C++ Builder, VB-Dos, VB1 thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, Borland C++ 3(DOS), Borland C++ 4.5, HTML, ASP(somewhat), QBasic(hehe, yea it was 4.5 too, least i didnt start with COBOL)