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vincent_ruxton

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error reading fixed disk!!!!

Ihave a 20 gb hard drive and I partitioned it so that 15gb was dedicated to windows 98 and 5gb was left vacant.I wanted to put another operating system(windows NT) on my computer so I decided to utilise the 5gb by creating an extended partition and so I did and then system told me I had to shut down and reboot and then format the drive I had created. When the system booted up it asked for the win boot disk so I inserted it and it took me through to the A:
I then tried to format the drive e: and it told me that the format was not supported on drive E:
So I tried it on drive D: and it told me insufficient memory to load the system files
Finallly I tried it on drive:f and it told me it cannot format a network drive
I have tried to enter the fdisk process again in order to eliminate the partition I have created in ordrer to return to normal but it won't let me enter- it gives the message: "error reading fixed disk"
 What can I do??????Where did I go wrong????
Avatar of Navid
Navid

Hi you!
This error can be caused by:

(1)
Hard drive not setup properly in CMOS.
(2)
Hard drive not connected
(3)
Bad hard drive
------
(1)
Hard drive not setup properly in CMOS:
Insure that the hard disk drive is setup as Auto or correctly manually configured in CMOS.
Additional information about how to enter CMOS can be found on:
http://www.computerhope.com/help/cmos.htm
Listings of hard disk drives CMOS settings can be found on:
http://www.computerhope.com/hdspecs.htm
-------
(2)
Hard drive not connected:
Open the computer case being aware of ESD( http://www.computerhope.com/esd.htm ) and insure that the cables are properly connected to the hard disk drive as well as connected from the hard drive to the interface card or motherboard.
----
(3)
Bad hard drive

If the hard disk drive is setup as auto or is correctly manually configured and the cables appear to be connected properly it is likely that the hard disk drive is bad. It is recommended a new hard disk drive be purchased or that the computer be serviced.
---
Good luck
Navid
Which Drive letter do you believe it should have been on?

Perhaps take a look at
http://www.wintrouble.net/discus/messages/65/2950.html

Regards, Bud
http://www.wintrouble.net
Oh BTW,
If you were going to load NT did you use LBA or Fat32?

Or rather Yes or no to the 1st FDISK screen.

And I recomend you read this article by Dew Associates.
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/multiboot/boot_ini.htm

Regards, Bud
http://www.wintrouble.net
Avatar of vincent_ruxton

ASKER

I pressed "no"when it asked me if I wanted hard disk support.
I have tried typing in fdisk/status and it gave me this result:
            FIXED DRIVE STATUS
Disk  Drv,   Mbytes       Free         Usage
1            19540                      100%
               C:        14661
               D:         2047

I also tried reinstalling windows 98 butit warned me that it could not install it as I needed to create a boot partition
when I try to format the D: drive with "format d: /s" I get the message"Insufficient memory to load system files . Format terminated
fdsik /mbr is always worth a crack..
Did you create a logical drive within the new partition? I didn't see it mentioned above. This should be drive D:, if you don't have another hard drive in your system. The boot flopy RAM disk would be E: and possibly a CD unit drive F:. You cannot format a CD ("network drive") and I'm uncertain about the RAM disk.
Regards
/RID
Just listen to me: Try a new hard disk. You are wasting your time trying to fix the problem on ms-dos since it looks like nothing is working and you have done anything. My answer looks simple but wait before rejecting it. If you could fix your problem without changing hard disk, then reject my answer.
I have had a similar problem, tryed anything, asked people, called support and at the end the only solution was changing the disk drive. That helped!
Buy a new hard disk.
Hassanni:
I have seen your proposed answer somewhere. Can not just remmember where!?!
:-)
Listen, Hassanni, why not follow code and submit suggestion only? See tips at bottom of page! Besides, a new hard drive might just solve the problem, but if corruption has occured, that is due to software problems, it is not a permanent solution.
Regards
/RID
For formatting just use your fromaty command and forget the /s.

After you format, run from floppy
A:\>sys c:

This memeory problem is not uncommon.

You don't need a new hadr drive. As for NT you need
NTFS, see
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q197/6/67.ASP

Regards, Bud
http://www.wintrouble.net
Sounds to me like you set the newly created partition active. Enter your BIOS setup and make sure that your boot sequence is set to boot from A first. Boot to the boot disk. Run fdisk and make your C drive active. It should boot normally.
Well after sweating it out these last twenty four hours I have solved the problem. As i related in the article I wa sunable to acces my fdisk and any attempt to format the drive was blocked as well. I had even gone to the extreme of taking it into a computer businesa nd having it checked out by "experts" which cost me about #10 and I was told that the hard drive was damaged and dead and I needed a replacement. I discussed the matter with the chap who supplied the drive and he was extremely sceptical that there was anything wrong with the drive. Now the drive was a Fujitsu and he reminded me that the company has adownload of a disk manager called "Disk Go". Well there was nothing to lose so I tried it and it worked a treat. I was able to fomat the drive and as a result gain acces to the fdisk again. Then after that I was able to reinstall the windows 98 and the programs. Ter is amoral in this story which I think goes like this: Your not dead till a dead horse kicks you!!Note this well Mr.Hassani.Thakyou everybody for the input but unfortunately none of it worked this time
In the future, with most disk overlay programs, you have to wait for the overlay to load before booting from a floppy. Once this happens, there should be a message something to the effect of:

To boot from floppy, press X

where X is the keyboard key to press.
vincent_ruxton:
Glad that your problem got solved.
So your problem was your "Hard drive". Sounds like a bug in your hard drive  installation and the company has released a patch to fix it.(so typical)
To be honest, you have solved your problem cheap since most of the time if the hard drive is correctly installed in Cmos and correctly and installed Physicly hard disk drive as well as connected from the hard drive to the interface card or motherboard, then it is a bad hard drive. Have experienced it some times. Well next time always check for patches and fixes from companies. If no patches was avilable, then you can look for other solutions.
Hello all,
I am Computer101, a moderator from Experts-Exchange and also an expert within this topic area. This question has been open a long time.  What I am going to do is allow feedback from the questioner and experts.  If it is not resolved, I will delete or accept an answer based on the info I have been given, Experts, feel free to offer input.  I will monitor these questions for a period of 5-7 days and come back and evaluate.  I will have another moderator (who is also an expert in this topic area) look at the question also to ensure we do the right thing for this question.

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