Hd totally lost!

[bimbass]

I just lost my HD!?
After installing windows
I got lots of errors, so I installed it on D as well.
But the drives got switched around, somehow, and
I absolutelly lost control of everything!

Now I tried "diskedit" but got not very far.
The message in DOS reads:
"Invalid media type reading drive c"

Could enyone help, please.
I am a former Mac person and windows and Dos are
quite something for me.

Thanks in advance.

[Paleo Pete]

Invalid media type means it's either not formatted or it bit the dust.

It's not uncommon for drives to go belly up while installing, that's about the hardest workout they ever get, except when the machine crashes and you can hear the thing thrashing around like a mad hornet. There's a lot of reading and writing going on during installations, so if the drive is borderline already, that will sometimes finish it off.

Try fdisk, if fdisk reads it you might be able to format it and try again. It might not be a bad idea to swap them around, and make the current D drive Master, format it and start over and see if you get a clean install. In any case, I think it would be best to format the C drive and try to start again.

Hard Disk Partitioning and Formatting Procedure (http://www.pcguide.com/proc/setup/hdd-c.html)

Quick Guide to a win98 fresh Start (http://www.hardwarehell.com/fdisk.htm)

How to fdisk A Hard Drive (http://www.sybercom.net/jtmurphy/page11.htm)

Those links might help, make sure you have the drives set up for the right FAT, win95B & 98 will work best in FAT32, win3.x and 95A should be setup in FAT16, and NT has to have the NTFS.

If fdisk won't read the drive, check the cables, and check the jumpers on the back of both drives. The C drive should be jumpered as Master, D should be Slave. Standard procedure is to put Master at the end if the IDE cable, and Slave on the middle connector. Two plugs on the ribbon cable are closer together, those go to the drives, the other end on the motherboard.

If fdisk will see the drive, fdisk_/mbr using a space instead of the underscore ( _ ) might fix the Master Boot Record and allow the machine to read the drive again, try it if fdisk sees it.

------------------
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)

[bimbass]

Thanks for the reply.
I think I figured it out with
a big help of the article you mentioned.

"Hard Disk Partitioning and Formatting Procedure"

Windows is now installing... :o)
Mind you I got to inplement WinCD to format, I couldn't
get it going from Floppy.
Huh, Am I happy.

Thanks again. BTW, looks like as great place to look for advice

[Paleo Pete]

Glad you got it going, and thanks for the compliments. We've all done a lot of work to build that reputation, and it keeps getting better. Great crew here...

------------------
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines!
Note: Please post your questions on the forums, not in my email.

Computer Information Links (http://www.geocities.com/paleopete/)