crnz
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Apparently complex HDD failure under XP, but good old FDISK saved the day - why?
Hi. I got this XP Home system that would ang during a reboot, sometimes it would get as far as showing a desktop. However, the more I tried, the less it progressed, to the point where it wouldn't do much at all. None of the F8 boot options would work either. Safe mode, last best config, and so on. BartPE/UtimateBootCD... hangs. To take the data off, I slaved it off another system. As soon as I plugged in the drive, the other system wouldn't boot. Huh. I then plugged the drive in as a master into another system, still no booting... As a master drive in the system, decided to boot the XP CD into Repair mode. It got as far as it detecting the drive and the system froze again. Huh. In a last ditch effort, I boot off a win98 floppy and start win98 setup. It comes up with the drive containing an unknown operating system, do I want to erase it and continue. yes I do. Do I want to reboot, then format? yes I do. And lo and behold, the drive is back.
Ok, my question: What could the problem have been, and could there have been a better way to solve it? We lost some data this way, and I have this feeling that if I had known what to do I could probably have restored access to it.
I realise it's hard to theorise after the fact, but I'm interested in your opinion of my process and any I-should-have's I can learn from for next time.
Ok, my question: What could the problem have been, and could there have been a better way to solve it? We lost some data this way, and I have this feeling that if I had known what to do I could probably have restored access to it.
I realise it's hard to theorise after the fact, but I'm interested in your opinion of my process and any I-should-have's I can learn from for next time.
ASKER
Hi Rick, thanks for that feedback.
To add to the story, putting a fresh hard drive into the original machine made everything work ok. So I didn't really suspect any of the other hardware to be at fault. Especially as the problem travelled with the HDD to the 2nd system where we put it in as a slave (no boot at all on the master!), and then as the master when we finally "tamed" it with win98 but after booting of XP F8 menus and XP CD recovery.
I have enough experience never to say never, but the original system is currently operating with a new HDD without any trouble, so for now it appears the problem was not RAM, etc.
It's like XP looks at the drive for the very first time and gets something it can't handle. Yet FDISK was simply blunt and effective "something on there I don't recognise, want to get rid of it?".
With 20/20 hindsight, I just have this bad feeling I could have recovered that HDD easily if only I knew how :)
To add to the story, putting a fresh hard drive into the original machine made everything work ok. So I didn't really suspect any of the other hardware to be at fault. Especially as the problem travelled with the HDD to the 2nd system where we put it in as a slave (no boot at all on the master!), and then as the master when we finally "tamed" it with win98 but after booting of XP F8 menus and XP CD recovery.
I have enough experience never to say never, but the original system is currently operating with a new HDD without any trouble, so for now it appears the problem was not RAM, etc.
It's like XP looks at the drive for the very first time and gets something it can't handle. Yet FDISK was simply blunt and effective "something on there I don't recognise, want to get rid of it?".
With 20/20 hindsight, I just have this bad feeling I could have recovered that HDD easily if only I knew how :)
problem was definitely that hard drive freezing windows because either boot sector of Fat or partition table on hard drive is corrupt. Any time you move drive to new system, assuming jumpers are correct, and this drive cause good system to give problem, you must suspect drive has sector track errors, or is not reporting data right to BIOS, hence windows. Reason format fixed problem is because you had bad fat, part table or boot sector on drive, or not jumpered right. always check first to make sure that BIOS sees drive for right parameters. If not correct, drive not working right.
Seeing as though you could detect the HDD but couldn't access the contents I would think its a Master Boot Record issue.
In this case I would attempt an fdisk /mbr from DOS prompt and try booting again.
In this case I would attempt an fdisk /mbr from DOS prompt and try booting again.
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The data was still on your HDD, but the OS couldn't access it. If XP was trying to access a different part or your RAM that was having a problem, the results would be as you described. With W98, the problem would show up much later and could have very negative effects like changing or over-writing data when you least expected.
I would say either one or more of your RAMs have a problem, or your MOBO is due for replacement or BIOS update. I would tend to suspect the RAM, but you never know.
Hope this helps.
Rick