Hard Disk Failure!

[zha29]

BIOS shows my hard disk in the setup but no partitioning command(i.e FDISK) detects it and not shown in boot device priority also. Any one plzzzzz help me.

Zafar.

zha29[at]yahoo.com

[PrntRhd]

Zafar,
Welcome to the PC Guide forums.
I edited the address to prevent bots from harvesting it to send you spam. (It is not a good policy to post live email addresses on public forums.)

[Sylvander]

Try using the HDD manufacturers disgnostic floppy to test the HDD.

What make is the HDD?

[zha29]

Try using the HDD manufacturers disgnostic floppy to test the HDD.

What make is the HDD?


I have tried virtually everything which was available to me (esp from Seagate support website) but nothing worked. Its from Seagate ST320413A (20 GB). Any thing else?

Actually the problem started when i connected this HDD with another HDD in a PC and coppied some data in to it. The data was copied successfully but when i connected this HDD with another PC then this problem started and i have connected this HDD to many PCs but the same problem.Many softwares also detect it but they say "Unknown System" and things like that.The OS was Win XP.

[Sylvander]

Is the jumper back in the "Master" position?

In the PC's you connected this HDD to, was the BIOS Setup configured to "Auto" detect all drives [so the drive parameters would be correct]?

How big is this HDD, and was the BIOS of each PC to which it was connected Properly configured to deal with it [using LBA] and capable of seeing all of the drive's capacity?

If the Seagate test utility cannot see the drive, there must be something really basic that's wrong [like connection cable, jumper, BIOS configuration].

[Mini-Me]

Generally, if a drive is visable in the BIOS, but not accessable under DOS/Windows/Linux, then there is a partitioning problem, or the drive is not formatted for the OS you are using.

I HAVE HAD A SIMILAR PROBLEM with a drive that had Linux on it, and the Linux ext2 file-system. When you plonk the drive into a new machine, the BIOS sees it just fine, but FDISK does not, nor does any attempt to access it via a boot-disk. This is due to the totally different format that Linux is using.

In that case, I had to zap the drive with SeaTools software, before FDISK would even look at it - every other attemp to look at the drive with FDISK and the Linux system still there resulted in FDISK reporting that it could not see the drive... Delete all partitions with the BOOTABLE SeaTools suite of disk tools, and re-partition for DOS/XP, and then FDISK took it from there...

Now, I know that this is not really the issue here, as you say it had/has XP on it, but I thought I would mention the above just in-case...

Also, it is worth noting, that if the drive was formatted using NTFS when it was used under XP(the default format for XP), then no DOS or Windows 95/98/Me boot disk's FDISK program will be able to access it.

This is very important to remember - all you will get will be the "Unknown partition" error you are getting. Seeing as DOS/95/98/Me cannot work with NTFS drives/partitions, they also cannot delete them!!!
:p

In your case, with the drive in the machine, jumpered as SLAVE, and the machine started up, you should be able to access the contents of the drive under XP with no problems at all.

Now assuming that you want to format and re-use this drive as a boot drive, I would proceed in the following way:

1) Drive set as MASTER, no other drive in the system, boot the system with the 2-floppy Seagate drive setup utilities. This is not the Disk Wizard for Windows utility, that you run from within Windows...

You may need to download the install set from this link (http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html).
Select DISK WIZARD STARTER EDITION - the one that says it works from DOS. It sets itself up with a point-and-click GUI, so you don't need to remember/learn any old DOS commands!!!

I would also download the latest SeaTools diagnostic software (http://www.seagate.com/support/seatools/index.html) while you are at the Seagate site...(the one that says SeaTools Desktop is the one you want.)

SeaTools Desktop is also a bootable disk set.

I would be inclined to boot and run the SeaTools Desktop disk-set first, to establish if there are any major faults with the drive, before you go any further.

2) Once Starter Edition has booted, you should be able to follow your nose, and delete any existing partitions, check the condition of the drive, and re-partition and format for the system you want. The utility is very easy to use, so you should have no problems...

Good luck, and please do let us know how you get on.
:)

[Paul Komski]

Also, it is worth noting, that if the drive was formatted using NTFS when it was used under XP(the default format for XP), then no DOS or Windows 95/98/Me boot disk's FDISK program will be able to access it.
Not quite so. Fdisk will normally see ntfs partitions as non-msdos partitions and be capable or deleting them or of setting them as active. DOS on its own cannot read the ntfs file system but that is not the same thing since fdisk is really only functions on extra partition structures and metadata. Accessing very large drives is a different problem and which is not an issue here.

HDDs can be recognised in the BIOS setup but still be bad - particularlly with a corrupt PCB. Test the drive with the maker's utility and if it sees and gives it the OK then zero the whole drive with the same utility if you can afford to lose all the data on it.

If this drive was once functioning normally then it is unlikely to be any BIOS related issue. "and not shown in boot device priority" when it does appear in the main bios setup is not good news.

[Paul Komski]

P.S. I missed the following quote: Many softwares also detect it but they say "Unknown System" and things like that.The OS was Win XP

If software can "detect" (even unknown systems) it sounds likely (surface defects and bad sectors apart) that there are problems with the mbr or other metadata areas of the drive. Have you tried fixboot and fixmbr as commands from the WinXP installation CD's recovery console? or even a repair installation of WinXP as per http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

More precise wording of error messages could also be of value.

[Mini-Me]

Paul: Re-FDISK vs NTFS - Really?!??
I always was of the understanding that NTFS was essentially impossible to access/work with under older systems.

"Access" - probably impossible, but access to the partition table - maybe.

I will run a little experiment with an old XP drive - will boot up from 95B boot disk and see what happens...
:)

Sorry if I have put ZHA29 wrong here...

You learn something every day!!!
:p

[Paul Komski]

Paul: Re-FDISK vs NTFS - Really?!?? Yes - Really; though there is a little hiccup with logical partitions.

Primary partitions; no problem.
Logical partitions; run fdisk twice.
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=179144

Large partitions; fdisk limitation of 64gig unless patched. Very large (>512GB) is a no no.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263044

ps FreeFdisk can go up to 128GB http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/