where is my hard drive?

[princesstippytails]

have an old cyrix ast
given to me; no software, drivers, specs or info
won't boot
looks like it lost all its config
maybe someone took out its battery? at one point..

when i put in boot disk and try to run fdisk to see what's on the hard drive it says "no fixed disks present"

no hard drive??

so did someone reformat it?
usually fdisk shows hd info
what are my steps to make a c: drive and load os ; make this thing work?

 

[Stealer]

Does not sound good. Take the cover off and check to make sure the power connector and the ide cable and attached correctly. If so take the hard drive out and try it another computer. Sounds like it may have crashed if fdisk does not see it.

Stealer

 

[franklin97355]

If the CMOS lost power and the harddrive is not set dos will not see it either. You may need to run setup to reset the hard drive parameters.

 

[princesstippytails]

k took cover off looks good in there

i ran set up how make it find it
it's set to auto

you say "run setup"
I went to set up ctl-alt-esc

is there a trick to make it auto detect?
"run it"
how do I do that?

 

[Mulga]

In setup select the primary master, if it is set to "Auto", hit enter. This should make it autodetect. If it still is not detected and you are sure all cables and the jumpers on the hard drive are ok then I am afraid the drive or the motherboard IDE controller is dead. You could try the drive as a slave in another system (don't forget to change the jumper) to ascertain which is the problem All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door.

 

[Philbong]

Have you made sure the jumper settings are set correct on the drive ? If its master or slave ?

 

[darkomen62]

If you can get into Fdisk then the connections are fine, possible a corrupt HDD, could be worth buying a cheap small one to get yourself going.

 

[princesstippytails]

k
here is what i think i'll do
i will take apart the computer components and reseat them
check the jumper
take note of the hd info on the case of the hd

i'll boot back up
if it doesn't detect it
i'll check fdisk
if i don't see it
i'll go set up and enter on auto
although auto is already set

if that doesn't do it
i'll put in the specs of a new hd in cmos
and boot new hd

sound good?

PrincessTT