Well i screwed up, I fdisk on my hard drive and deleted extended partition, and the primary partition, then restarted my pc, i should have created the primary partition first before restart, now when i type FDISK it says invalid media type reading drive c any ideas?



NANCY :(

Presuming there is no data you wish to recover from this drive, either get the manufacturers diagnostic utility to run on a floppy diskette and use it to write zeros to the drive.

Alternatively write zeros just to the boot and partition tables (much quicker) by using WipeOut (http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html).

Then start over with partitioning and formatting.

There is no data that i want, The program wipe-out, once loaded it is loaded does it auto-0-run, basically i wont have to do alot of steps?So I downloaded the wipe-out from the link thanks paul wish me luck!!!!!I do have another dirve d:\ in the same pc,maybe I should make d:\ the c:\, there only 650mbon both dirves. so what happened after i deleted the primary partition? that was the mistake? NANCY

How to use WipeOut.

1- Unzip file
2- Copy wipeout.exe to a Win9x boot floppy diskette
3- Boot with that Win9x floppy diskette
4- At the A:\> type wipeout  c:  /nq  /np

(I would include the two swithches which are:-
/nq = no queries - you will not be asked if you are sure.
/np = no partitions - this will overwrite the MBR.)

What you finish up with is a HDD with a blank MBR (master boot record) and this then appears to be a pristine new HDD.

If the MBR has a "bad sector" then that means a new HDD. More likely there is just some malconformation of the data on the MBR caused by heaven's knows what. Boot sector viruses could do this sort of thing too - though this doesn't "seem" a likely cause at the moment.

Make sure that C: is the dodgey drive (if unsure remove the good drive while you do all of this) by typing dir at a C: prompt. These are powerful utilities and you dont want to lose the data on your good drive I guess.

After you have wiped the MBR try fdisking, partitioning and formatting. Remember to reboot after partitioning and before formatting.

If all still fails - grab the HDD diagnostic utility from their website and run it in a similar fashion to WipeOut; first run a diagnostic and second run a complete zeroing of the drive.

Hey paul,
I ran the wipeout program, then it says has no partition so remeber to run fdisk and format. The fdisk gives same error message invalid media type reading drive c. at the a:\ i type format c: it runs to completion and the says complete, system transferd, bad partition table, format terminated?:confused:

Looks like it is time to grab the drive manufacturer's diagnostics and give them a spin.

so just look on the hard drive to get the specs? and manufacturer, because i bought the pc at a garage sale, i dont have paper work?;)

Yep, you will probably have to pull it out to look since the details are on top usually. Write down most of what you find there since that info may be helpful later.

FYI, BestBuy this week has a 40gig hard drive for $30 after rebates....

thanks paul, and mjc i really did not want to take out the hard drive so i tryed doing the wipeout a few more times and it worked, i loading win 98, back to trying to load those drivers:D

since its an older pc I better check the bios,some do not support bigger drives, if Im right?;)

If you have loaded Win98 it would be a good idea to see if the hard drive is identified in the Device Manager and then download and run the diagnostic software from the manufacturer soon. It is likely that your hard drive has a problem if it took that much effort to set it up with the errors you were getting. If it is failing, you may want to know that before you put too much time and energy into setting it up...

Edit: RE: 40gig HD... Yes, but there are several ways to get around that if you need to. BIOS updates sometimes, things like EZBios and IDE expansion cards are a few of the options.

Just one of the 512 bytes (that is to say the media descriptor byte) of the mbr - of either a floppy or hard disk drive - needs to be wrong to create this problem and the associated warnings. If that byte is wrong (it was likely to have been corrupted by the fdisking sequence) (and note that any partitioning utility can create problems on occasion) then the media cannot be accessed until that byte is overwritten or correctly edited.

It is a much more common problem with floppies and can be resolved using a hex editor to write over that media descriptor byte.

I would guess that is an end to this problem - though there is no harm in running a diagnostic on the drive at any stage you like.

I guess its the end,after loading win98 igot missing window files, then it wouldnt boot, at boot from my startup floppy it says drive c does not contain a valid fat or fat32 partition and gives 3 reasons. so i ran fdisk,it says no fixed disk present, and i ran wipeout c: /nq /np and it say unable to read drive c boot sector, when i type c:\dir the files are there, well i guess its time to lay this drive to rest. I need to get that diganotic utitily you were talking about for later problems.:(

bought a used hd 2gb set the bios with the new cyclnders, heads,put jumper on master, still not seeing drive?:confused:

Can you set the BIOS to Autodetect the hard drive? Try that, and see if it then finds the drive. That way you don't have to worry about heads, cylinders etc

yes i set it to auto dectect no good, it is still not seeing the drive I have the red stripe on pin 1,anu ideas?:(

even with the the other harddrive i put in, I still get the same error messages look under thread dead drive for the info:confused: :confused:

Sounds like maybe you are having an onboard controller prblem. If that is the case you can wither send the motherboard off to ritement land or use a PCI IDE card.

I think you could be right, but after reading all the error messges they all point to a corrupt or missing MBR, I tryed fdisk/mbr no good, maybe when i ran wipeout? last thing Ill get that norton utilities if that doesnt work wednesday is trash night and salvage parts. I only paid 50.00 at a garage sale for the pc thanks:rolleyes:

I have no idea, where this thread is going to. But from the very first post, all that was needed, was either the creation of an active primary partition and or the formatting and "set active" of an existing partition.

How you guys got into suggesting disk utilities and writing "00"s and diags and controller problems is beyond me, good luck Nancy.

no-mbr as I understood it this was all due to the nature of the problem outlined right at the start:-
now when i type FDISK it says invalid media type reading drive c any ideas?

She couldn't fdisk and create a partition (let alone read the partition information with fdisk) - or have I missed something?

.... and how come a second HDD has equivalent problems??

correct paul I couldnt fdisk, format,I should give-up, but when i got up this morning i started with boot disk i was able to fdisk, but after that it wouldnt let me format same error invalid media type ,bad clusters format terminated, it looks like a corrupt mbr and partition table. or maybe failing controller. wheres a good place to get the diagnostics utilites? They do run in dos? I did buy nortons utilites at software rerun for 3.00, for win95 she said it would work on win 98, but when i put it in said it wouldnt run in dos mode.

Find the make of the HDD and go to their website, Google for Western Digital, or Maxtor, or Seagate etc and you will soon find the home page. Go to the support section and download their diagnostic utility. Post the make here and someone will point you in the right direction if this is problematic.

Hey, that's the pretty "error message" much standard for an unformatted drive.

Since, I can't get the context, of the sit-ee-ation, I would have guessed the command.com environment variable [or path]is some how set to a non-existent drive for the "fdisk.com" file.....who knows why!

Never mind, you guys are helping, I'll shut up.

It could be due to a mix of the version of the files on the boot diskette and whether there was a cold or warm reboot (and the effect of any ramdisk on C:) before attempting to format. One would have thought that a cold reboot should have sorted any ramdisk problem though.

Similar problems at http://www.tek-tips.com/gpviewthread.cfm/qid/100566/pid/751/lev2/66/lev3/68 where either using the disk diagnostics or using a different format.com seem to have resolved the problem.

There's no need to shut-up no-mbr we all like to learn and if there are solutions we don't know about they would be welcome if shared with us. Agree that that is a "standard" error message - but what is the "standard solution"?

well i guess no-mbr might have been right on part of the problem, that is was very simple soultion, I put in my used hard drive an set the jumper to master and the 2nd drive to slave ( i had 2 drives in the pc )still could not access disk said no fixed disk or on post it couldnt find the drives, so I set the 2nd drive to cable select and it found both drives, my used drive is 2gb but it has os win98 and a file system fat16, tryed to change the file to fat 32 in windows, but would not convert so i guess i back to fdisk, and format unless theres another way to covert to fat32. So as far as jumper setting with 2 drives is it always channel IDE 1, master and slave. Or can you use IDE 2? Its funny my 2nd drive had to be set to channel select? Theres also jumpers on the motherboard G,H,J,K, and the jumper is on G, and numbers 1-5,2-6,9-13,10-14,18-22,17-21,26-30,25-29, all have jumpers on them execpt 1-5 do you know what these jumpers are for??:rolleyes:

I don't have the answers to your other questions, but you can use either IDE1 or IDE2 for either hard drive....

well, i want to thank everyone who helped me after fdisk, format i reloaded win98 and bought a new nic card and sound card.
everything is working great :D

After fdisk, reformating and all the troubleshooting my win 98 pc, and loading win98 back. I installed nuts and bolts for 98, and after that it wouldnt boot up again back to the same errors bad patition table, no fixed disks, it wouldnt let me fdisk, after i rebooted a couple of times it let me part way, I say this has to be a failing disk controller? dont you think?:(

First - exclude a bad hdd by getting the diagnostic utillity from the maker - put it onto a floppy - and check your drive.

slso i wnanted to metion i had replaced the hard drive, i think its the disk controller, or maybe the data cable? what do you think?:(

i tryed the other ide slot same thing, i tryed a different cable. still same error messages:confused:

Sounds like the controller to me, but since both of the drives you’re using are used and right around the age that HDs usually go to a happier place, you could be dealing with two mechanically failing HDs.

Also, the jumpers on your mobo usually have nothing to do with IDE devices. They’re for multiplier/bus settings, clearing the CMOS, disabling the keyboard etc.

well after reseating data cable,power cable and jumper and rebooting a few times, for the 3rd time ive loaded back win98. And the hard drive i just bought from software reruns 2gb so i know it has to be good.:p

When you say you installed nuts and bolts, you don't mean McAfee Nuts and Bolts by any chance do you. I forget what the problems were now, but I ended up having to wipe a drive and start over due to that program a few years ago....

yes it was the mcafee NUTS & bolts 98, any way after reinstalling 98 back some files did not transfer, any way my cd-rom is missing its not in the device manager, and when you go to update the driver or reinstall the driver, the cd rom option is not avaliable?:rolleyes:

i think its finally time to give up and lay this pc to rest,its hard tho you just wnat to get it right, after fdisk, fromatting and reloading win98 for about the 4th time, it goes back to the same thing insert bootable media in approiate drive. Well it had other errors to.I think ive tryed everything. one ? during post when the hard drive was found it had symbols after it like a n with a line above it and money && signs do you know what they represent?:mad:

i lyed i tryed 1 last thing i reseated the cmos battery, anyway it says that pc hangs and intermett errors in my case are proably caused by motherboard chipset, bios? I thought of a dying power pack,?:rolleyes:

its finally over, i reseated the cmos battery anyway i went into the bios to put in the correct harddrive setting, and would not let me, it did before. ive got alot of spare parts:(

Spare parts are good....:)

On the other hand, if you have any friends that are computer junkies, it might be worth doing some more experimenting. We can only guess what is going on from what you tell us, but 2 people in the same room can often figure out things that we miss because you miss it on your own....

Thats a great idea, i reallly dont know anyone, but if any one lives close to schaumburg and would like to work on pcs email me nancy