NovemberSag
asked on
Hard Drive Problems
Okay, I am trying to format this drive and getting a message saying that the drive can not be access, I used a utility from Western Digital and was giving a message saying that the drive had either been formated ntfs or hpfs.
The owner of hard drive, has stated that this drive has only had Win98 on it.
Any advice
The owner of hard drive, has stated that this drive has only had Win98 on it.
Any advice
Go to www.storage.ibm.com and download the Drive Fitness Test. It has an option to "Erase Disk" that will completely zero out the drive (I am fairly sure it will work on non-IBM drives). Assuming you don't want to recover any data from this drive of course....
-dog*
-dog*
ASKER
I tried the website that you suggest dogztar, unfortunately the results was an error.
Also, DabRain, yes I did try using fdisk, that was when I received the first error saying that the disk was unreadable, then the second time was the error that the format was ntfs or hpfs.
Also, DabRain, yes I did try using fdisk, that was when I received the first error saying that the disk was unreadable, then the second time was the error that the format was ntfs or hpfs.
ASKER
I checked once again the error that I am receiving is "error reading fixed disk".
do you know how big is the drive?
Forget using fdisk then, download PART http://www.ranish.com/part/ , this is also a partitioning utility that may or maynot be able to read the disk, but you will have more chance with this than fdisk.
If this fails try imaging over the drive from another good drive usiing Ghost or similar.
If this fails try imaging over the drive from another good drive usiing Ghost or similar.
Can you give us more informations about your HD ? Seagate, IBM, WD, ... model ?
ASKER
More information:
This is a Western Digital 84AA. Until recently (meaning now) it was used as the secondary drive on a system running Win98.
This is a Western Digital 84AA. Until recently (meaning now) it was used as the secondary drive on a system running Win98.
http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/dlgdiag.zip
Try that one...
You said above "I checked once again the error that I am receiving is "error reading fixed disk". "
Assuming that means you created the DFT disk and booted from it, but you get this error? Does the BIOS detect the drive correctly (size or C/H/S)?
Ensure the jumpers are properly configured:
http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp
See this page (you may need to reselect the model, WD84AA):
http://www.wdc.com/products/legacy/Legacy.asp?r=2
Are you using the 80 conductor IDE cable?
-dog*
Try that one...
You said above "I checked once again the error that I am receiving is "error reading fixed disk". "
Assuming that means you created the DFT disk and booted from it, but you get this error? Does the BIOS detect the drive correctly (size or C/H/S)?
Ensure the jumpers are properly configured:
http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp
See this page (you may need to reselect the model, WD84AA):
http://www.wdc.com/products/legacy/Legacy.asp?r=2
Are you using the 80 conductor IDE cable?
-dog*
ASKER
I have verified the jumpers and yes the bios pick up the drive.
ASKER
I am using IDE cables
ASKER
As of today, in addition to all that you have suggested. I have tried using Partition Magic 7, to verify the file system on the drive, which according to PM the drive is FAT32. I find it very strange that I can access this drive when placed is a slave status, however not able to access it as a Master.
After verifing this drive using PM, I placed the drive back into the system, and tried accessing the drive using "Fdisk", once again I had no luck. I received the error "unable to access fixed drive".
This is very frustrating.
After verifing this drive using PM, I placed the drive back into the system, and tried accessing the drive using "Fdisk", once again I had no luck. I received the error "unable to access fixed drive".
This is very frustrating.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
I will check..tks
So was it the cables or the jumpers, just out of curiosity?
-dog*
-dog*
ASKER
Jumpers.
I had it placed in the master and should have no jumper at all.
I had it placed in the master and should have no jumper at all.
Yeah, WD is tricky about that...IBM and Maxtor are a little more flexible.
Glad you got it working!
-dog*
Glad you got it working!
-dog*
Have you tried to use fdisk first to remove the partition, then resetup the partition and finally format??