BTW. For those that helped me with my earlier problem : I finally got GetDataBack and used it to restore my files. It wasn't a very good restore but I suppose it'll have to do since I really didn't feel like paying $180. Lesson learned. :p


Now for my newest problem.
While solving my earlier problem I had temporarily used a 1.2GB Seagate hard drive to boot from. It is a really old drive (the price sticker on it says $216!?). Well, not much later I replaced it with another borrowed 15 GB drive and just left the 1.2 GB on my desk. I just tried to reinstall the 1.2GB drive into its original system and found that it wasn't booting very well. Since I didn't have anything on it I just decided to start out clean and reformat it. I tried to format it but I'm only getting a "Invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable" error in DOS. Is my HD dead?

This was interesting: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q196579

However, their solution doesn't help since you cannot get into windows??

One solution would be to slave the drive to the operable system and then select the 1.2 to format.

I suspect the Seagate website would still have utilities that could test the drive and I would try that.

Budfred

Budfred : I'll have to try looking for that.

Whyzman : Well, I have been booting from the borrowed 15GB drive. I tried the full option in the Windows GUI format utility and it still comes up with an error. When I try it in MS-DOS mode in fdisk it says "No space to create DOS partition" whatever that means because even fdisk seems to be reporting the correct amount of HD space.

Hmmmmm....

You might want to try dropping the complete error message into GOOGLE (http://www.google.com) and see if anything resembles your situation.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=No+space+to+create+DOS+partition&btnG=Google+Search

You could try fdisk /mbr
If you can then delete all partitons, create a new partition and format it appropriate to the os you will be installing; you should be OK.

Otherwise use a disk manager (Seagate or 3rdParty) to write "zeros" to the disk.

How do I run fdisk /mbr to the seagate disk?? It seems that I may have to boot from the seagate to use fdisk /mbr but I can't do that.

You would run it from a Windows Startup disk in DOS. I don't think that is what I would do, but if you are going to do it, you do it from DOS.

Budfred

Since I didn't have anything on it I just decided to start out clean and reformat it. I tried to format it but I'm only getting a "Invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable" error in DOS. Is my HD dead?

This should have been done from a boot floppy such as a Win98 StartUp disk just as should any "fdisking".

;)

Also, make sure the partition you are attempting to format is not a logical partition as the error message in Wyzman's link suggested.

If so delete it with fdisk since you will need a primary partion on which to reinstall the OS.

I think that's what I would do; I think. ;)

ok. I was hoping to try that. One problem, I don't have a 3.5" floppy drive. :p

What I've tried so far is booting to DOS from my operating hard drive and deleting all partitions on the problem HD and trying to make a primary partition. It won't do it, it comes up with an error that says something like "No space for DOS partition". I guess I'll just have to scavenge for a spare floppy drive and try the fdisk /mbr. :(

Does the pc that you intend to clean install onto at least have a CD drive. What are its specs and which OS are you intending to install onto it?

Well, I was hoping to install Win98SE onto the HD using my computer that I'm using right now(already has Win98SE on it) and install the HD into the computer I'm intending to use it for. Anyway, the computer that will use this HD does have a CD-ROM. All I know is that the computer is really old, it's not mine. The CDROM is about 8x, 64 MB RAM, I'm not sure what CPU it has. It is one of those that had the "turbo" button on the case.The small display reads 166MHz.... I don't know what that's indicating, CPU (hopefully not), system bus (doesn't sound right but maybe :P). oh and it has a 3.5 and 5 inch floppy drives.

Right the first time......it is the CPU speed.

Well it should handle Win98se OK. There's no point in installing an OS onto it on another PC since the hardware won't match. If you had a partition on it that you could copy the setup files to, you would however eventually be able to run the setup from the copied setup files and not from the install CD - but you would still need to do this from a bootable drive and a Windows98 start up floppy would be best; IMHO.

If you can access a computer running Win98 (and that has a floppy drive) get it to make a new start up floppy from Add/Remove Programs "Startup Disk"; that is if you don't already have one.

BTW, which OS is running on the computer you are currently using?

The current computer I'm using also has Win98SE.

One thing I may have forgotten to mention, or has been forgotten at this end of the thread, is that I can't get a partition to properly 'work' on the 1.2 HD onto which I am trying to install Windows. When I try to make a partition in fdisk it gives me a "No space for DOS partition" error. Before, I was able to make a primary partition in fdisk but when I tried to format it it game me a "Invalid media or Track 0 bad - disk unusable", now I can't even partition it.

Did you download and run the Seagate utilities to see if the hard drive is really dead?

http://www.seagate.com/support/

They will also have utilities that will allow you to zero out the drive and start over if that ends up being the necessary tactic, of course, that is assuming that it isn't deceased.

Budfred

The error message you are getting is not, of itself, indicative of a bad drive. It arises in a couple of scenarios relating, in the main, to either (a) extended partitons containg logical partitions created by different partition-utilities or different DOS-versions of fdisk or (b) when there is a non-DOS (or not recognised as DOS) partition in front of the first primary partition. This could include a drive that was mounted or had been compressed with DBLSPACE etc. It could also result from a corrupt MBR or one that was infected with a boot virus.

Note that DOS FDisk comes in different versions, which are not mutually compatible.

The options available to you are limited if you are attempting to clean-up this drive without access to a floppy drive since the Seagate Disk Utilities (Low Level Formatting an ATA (IDE) Hard Drive (http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/ata_llfmt_what.html) and SeaTools Desktop (http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/)) need to be run from floppies as do most third-party partition management utilities. Seagate do also have an on-line way of checking-out a Seagate drive; though I have never used this.

One simple thing to try-out that hasn't been mentioned is to try to run scandisk on this drive since, amongst other things that it does, scandisk can on occasions "mend" the mbr.

Another option would be to install Partition Magic 7 or 8, which will let you access and manage the drive from within windows. Another utility that might work for you is Free FDISK 1.1.4 Beta (http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/) which can read "non-dos" partitions; but read all the docs before using it. All partition managment programs are very powerful, so backup any important data before proceeding.

Hrm...

Well, I don't have any data on there that I will be needing, luckily all of it was already backed up. I did try scandisk before but it wouldn't work, I can't remember the exact error it gave me.
Currently I am afraid to even connect the 'damaged' hard drive because whenever it is connected it causes windows - which is on the working hd - to give a Windows protection error (or something to that effect) on boot. I usually have to reboot, go through safe mode, and barely get it to work. I do have Partition Magic Pro 6.0 but that didn't seem to be able to partition it.
Currently I am trying to find my old 386 as I believe that had a 3.5 floppy in it that I think can be salvaged. In the meantime I think I'll try FreeFDISK....