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mikey2471

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where's my hdd

I just put another hdd in my system and win98 don't recognize it. If I run setup when i turn the machine on, then if I run fdisk I get a 5th option to change my systems fixed disk. But if I don't run setup this 5th option don't show up, and I can't get the hdd to show up in windows to save my life. I just want to format the disk if I can find it. LOL
Thanks alot,
Mike
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mikey2471

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Edited text of question.
reboot the system, hit F8 when it says Starting windows98, if you do it quick enough, it will bring you to a menu, choose safe mode command prompt only.

type FDISK, choose 5 to change to the second hard drive, partition, exit, reboot, again F8 at the Starting windows98, choose safe mode command prompt only, at the prompt, type FORMAT D: (unless you already have a D: hard disk.

you should be on your way
Thanks, I'll try that. But I do already have a d drive also because my C drive is partitioned. So then I would format E:?
yes, keep in touch

bill
Bill, I tried that, but when I try to partition the hdd it says "verifying drive integrity" then nothin happens. It sit's at 0% forever. I let it sit there for 10 minutes and it still had done anything. I tried it twice.
Mike
Hi
If your HD is UDMA66, You may have problems with bios or motherboard compatibility. Try to disable udma in bios then see if windows or fdisk detects the drive.
make sure that your cables are on square, possible that all pins are not contacting.........................<he shot into the darkness>
Tried that F350. I also hooked the drive up as master and tried to use my resoration cd. It said it would reinstall win95 or 98 so I told it to, then when it proceeded it said it did not recognize the drive. I've tried everything I can think of to fix it. What if it has NTFS on it would that make a difference for formatting in dos?
I'm totally stumped.
I let it sit there for 10 minutes and it still had done
                            anything. I tried it twice.


10 minutes is NOT long enough for this stage of the process.  Let it go here for an hour.  If it still doesn't progress, then there is some other problem.
at this point, I am wondering about the integrity of the hard drive.
depending on the manufacturer of the drive, several of the vendors offer a downloadable test for their drives.

do you have another machine you could try it in?

bill
Try setting the new disk up as a single not a master. Sometimes if master is set it needs a slave also.  install only the new disk. Make sure your BIOS setting are on auto or they match the new drive. Then try and format the new drive using a floppy boot disk to get going.
One thing that concerns me is this.

>I do already have a d drive also because my C drive is partitioned. So then I would format E:?

If The drive is set as a secondary drive, then the drive letter for the new drive would take D:, and move your existing D: to E:.  Then if you format E:, you erase your former D: drive.  Be carefull when formatting!

Connect your drives as you wish to have them in the end.  Then run "FDISK /STATUS" after booting to Safe Mode Command prompt, and post the information here.
If this drive was formatted with NTFS I suggest that you Fdisk it and remove all the partitions on this "new Drive"

After restarting the machine re-run Fdisk and rebuild any partitions you want.  After rebooting again go ahead and format the new partitions.

I have to do this all the time with NTFS drives.  Has something to do with the MFT from Win-NT interfering with the Dos format.

You should not have any problems knowing which drive to format because after you re-partition it you can view the current partions on that fixed disk and it will show you the new drive letters.
I also once had a hdd disapearing and this was caused by a virus called exebug
which my antivirus software didn't pick up but I d/l a newer version and cleaned my first drive and my second drive appeared again

hope this might help
Thanks guys for all your input I'll try to address all of your comments. jhance last night I tried fdisk again and let it try to verify the drive integrity for 1 hour and 10 minutes and still nothing. I kinda think the drive is shot.
   Oldgreyguy,
I dnlded a program called lifeguard from westerndigital, but it wouldn't run either. It looked goot at first, but then it just stops running for some reason, and ya, I did try it on another machine and got the same results.
   joed,
I tried setting it up as single instead of master but to no avail. I tried to install win98 on it just to see if it would work and I get the following...
Win98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid fat or fat32 partition. there are several possible causes. 1.May need partitioned
   2. 3rd party partitioning software
   3. Viruses
I don't know how to  check for viruses on this drive.
   Jason_S,
 Here is what happened fdisk /status if I don't run setup the disk don't show up at all in fdisk /status.
If I run setup and make sure the bios see the drive I get the following

Disk  drv  mbytes  free  usage
1            6526   392    94%
       C:    2047    
       D:    4087
2            1549  1549    %

that's it
     abaldwin,
I tried your suggestion too, but when I try to remove all partitions on this drive  get "no partitions defined" so that didn't work either.

Thank all you guys for all your help. I'm starting to think the drive is shot though. But will keep trying.
Mike
I take that running Setup as you are is to configure the hard drive in the BIOS.  Correct?  (which is necessary)

If so, then yes, do run Setup, and configure the drive.  Then as the results of fdisk/status show, the drive is recognized, but not fdisk'd.  Simply run Fdisk, select option 5, then 2, and create partitions on the second drive through options 1, 1, Y.  Then reboot, and format the new drive.

To be sure that you are formatting the correct drive, try "dir d:" from the prompt.  If it comes back with an error reading, then that is the correct drive letter to format.
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drive model number please...
cmarks55,
  Drive # is WDAC21700-40H
   Jason,
 I don't work this weekend or Monday so I will try your suggestions and let you know how they work. Prolly won't get to do anything until saturday though. Again, I really appreciate all of your guys' help.
Mike
so, go into bios, make sure this info matches what the bios says for the hard drive:
Capacity
 1,707.2 MB
Cylinders
 3308
Heads
 16
Sectors / Track
 63
Total Sectors
 3,334,464

If it doesn't match, specifically set your hard drive to the above settings, then try again.
When your system boots and it displays the screen that lets you go into BIOS, if you watch it it displays the hard drives, and CD-ROM drives it finds and where it finds them.  For instance it whould report something like a hard drive, possibly with the manufactures name and some numbers which may be your HD model numbers.  It should report on what is found on "primary master", "primary slave", "secondary master", and "secondary slave".  Watch this carefully and if possible, write down what you observe and post it.  This will help clarify whether your hard drive jumpers are set correctly and if BIOS sees your drive.  Note:  Your jumper settings can be somewhat off and it may still work, but this should not affect windows seeing the drive.
If you go into your BIOS, there should be an option to auto-detect hard drives.  I'm curious as to the results of that detection.  I'd be willing to bet that the HD settings I posted above are not what the computer shows.
cmark,
  You are right buddy. I don't remember exactly now what it said, but it wasn't the same as what you said it should be. I put in the info, but the MB was still off. If I put it on auto it says 1549 megs and I dont' remember the sectors and **** though. Why does that happen?
Avatar of Adam Leinss
Try using EZ-Drive to setup the drive (and no, you don't have to install EZ-BIOS, before I hear the moans and groans about overlay software)
http://www.tekwarecomputers.com/download/ezdrive9.exe.  Ez-drive writes directly to the disk, you don't have to use fdisk or format to setup the drive.  Worth a shot anyways.
I agree with aleinss, that's what I had to do to get my IBM drive to be recognized in the bios - but I allowed the bios to install, but not the other software....(and I used the IBM utility...) but for my 20GB WD, I used Data Lifeguard Tools (Formerly EZ-Drive) - Not sure if the link aleinss provided was for the new version or older ez-drive version so here it is from the WD Website:
http://www.westerndigital.com/service/ftp/drives.html#dlgtools
Either way, it seems like your bios just can't handle the drive for some reason, wd's utility should correct that.
I provided the link to version 9.09, an older version.  Newer versions check to see if you have a Western Digital Hard Drive (or if you download it from Maxtor, it checks if you have a Maxtor hard drive, etc).  I use it at work all the time and it's easier then keeping a copy for each manufacturer.  Plus, the new MaxTools that come with the Maxtor hard drives stink. It's all GUI and requires the use of a DOS mouse driver in order to use the mouse.  I like the text mode of ez-drive.  No GUI or pretty picture bs! =)  It's a shame that they resort to these hard drive checks.

Another thought du jour, I had this exact same problem (locking up at Verifying Disk Intergrity 0%) on two Dell machines.  Took hard drive to another computer, worked fine.  Go figure.
I've seen the same thing on Quantum Bigfoot drives.
I figured since he does have a WD and he is downloading it, why not get the one specifically for his drive, but thank you, I downloaded version 9 from your link and it will provide useful for me :)
Large drives may need tweeking in the BIOS, but with this drive, the Auto Setting should be just fine.  the size that is shown in BIOS is probably not going to be the same as cmarks55 stated as this is formatted capacity.  Make sure that Auto recognizes the Head, Cyl, Sector count, and all should be fine.
Thanks oldgreyguy,

I called WD tech support and have a new drive on the way. Thanks for your help guys.

Take it easy.

Mike H.