HELP- lost access to HD..

[doanh]

Hi,

I really need help in figuring this one out. I have a Maxtor 4.3 Gig drive. I took it off my computer and placed it into my friend's computer to help him back up his files before he reformats his HD. We had no problem moving his files onto my computer.

When he was done reinstalling Win 98 onto his HD his new Win 98 sees my HD but under property it has it as 0 bites capacity, 0 bites used space, 0 bites available space!

I took this drive and placed it back into my computer and it wont boot! The CMOS sees it during the initial boot up and in Fdisks the computer knows the size and the type of format for the HD. But that is about it! It tells me missing operating system?

What should I do? Is it a MBR problem? If so since the drive is 4.3 Gig is this a problem for the DOS MBR?

 

[emjem]

It sort of sounds like the hdd lost it's status as a boot disk.

AT the A: prompt type C: /S

 

[BarnyardMonkey]

Boot to DOS,put in startup disk and try the "Sys c:" from A: prompt.
MBR sounds like is corrupt some how.



Shawn.

 

[AC]

even if the drive isn't the active boot drive, shouldn't it still see the data?

if fdisk and windows can identify the size of the partition and the type of format, stuff that's stored in the mbr, then that should indicate that that's fine

so, it sounds more like a fat problem...perhaps it's corrupted or it's been altered...

get the latest version of ms scandisk or something like norton utilities disk doctor and see if u can fix it...be wary however, i've had bad experiences with older versions of scandisk making things worse

 

[doanh]

Thanks for coming in to help.

I cannot see anything on the drive right now. If I boot up with a Win 98 floppy, it wont event let me access the drive letter.

Fdisk can see the size and partition and format type of the file but windows thinks the drive needs to be formated. I dont want to lose all the data.

How can I find out if the MBR is faulty? Can I still use the CHKDSK command on the win 98 boot up disk?

I will try the c: /s and see what happens.

 

[dkk]

did you try "fdisk /mbr" ? it might help

 

[doanh]

now i am screwed!

I tried c: /s - that does not work at all.

I tried scandisk with the win 98 se, it does not work.

I tried fdisk /mbr and now in fdisk it no longer recognizes the format as FAT32 anymore.

Oh man, what do I do now???

 

[Usul]

IF and only IF there was a single full sized partiton and you're really desperate, do:
fdisk/mbr
and then with fdisk remove the partition, and recreate the partition as it was before.
I've done it 3 times on different machines, and it worked ( got access to the old files in the old partition) but not with extended partitons.
I'd give it a 70% chance of success.

Usul

 

[emjem]

About everything you've said now sounds like you have a hard drive that has been repartitioned and not yet formatted. Did you guys accidentilly fdisk your hard drive? If so you are screwed.

I guess it could be a virus you picked up from him but considering that his hard drive works it doesn't seem likely.

Maybe you can try what Usul says before you reformat. I've never heard of that trick but it looks like you don't have much to lose now.

 

[AC]

geez, so now u don't have any partitions either...hmm, how to fix...

so what does fdisk actually show you? do u see any partitions?

u shouldn't try anything that u aren't familiar with, since most changes are very hard to reverse...but what usual said might work: in theory, if u overwrite the mbr to recreate the partition with EXACTLY the same dimensions, then the partition will be just like the original

there are programs that u can buy that can detect old copies of the mbr and try to restore them, but since u have 2 problems now, not knowing what was wrong in the beginning can complicate matters

i cannot recommend any data recovery programs, since i have never had to use one

a good utility that i keep around is norton utilities..."disk doctor" can usually detect and repair partition errors and other disk problems while giving you the option of creating a backup file in case you want to reverse the changes...u can try that if u want, it shouldn't hurt as long as u create a backup file

as for the original problem, i'll get back to that when u get ur partitions back

there are always data recovery services availiable, but they are very expensive

 

[doanh]

Interesting inputs - thank you

1. This disk has only one partition! That's the good news. I did NOT repartition the drive.

2. Fdisk recognizes the single partition. The only problem is that Fdisk now does not know what format it is. Under format, it says - unknown. Before I did the fdisk/mbr command it said FAT32.

3. Are you suggesting that I now do this?
a. boot up again with the win 98 boot disk
b. go into fdisk and delete the primary partition?
c. reboot the computer and then fdisk again to recreate the primary
partition?

Would this not make the computer ask me to reformat the hard drive? I do not want to reformat the hard drive because this could mean permanent data loss!

what bothers me is that I could not execute the c: /s command in the beginning. Why did it not take this command?

 

[doanh]

Just to clarify

Before I perform the fdisk/mbr function - in fdisk it shows

Current fixed drive - 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
c: 1 A Pri Dos 4126 FAT32 100%

Total Disk Space is (4134 Mbytes)




AFTER I perform the fdisk/mbr function - in fdisk it shows

Current fixed drive - 1

Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage
c: 1 A Pri Dos 4126 UNKNOWN 100%

Total Disk Space is (4134 Mbytes)

In both cases, I could not boot up with this HD. Even when I boot with a floppy, I cannot go into drive c:

When I connect it as a slave drive. Win 98 asks me if I want to format the slave hard drive

Does this make my questions clearer? HELP ???

 

[emjem]

doanh, I must apologize because I gave you a non working dos command. c: /s is just the switch and does nothing unto itself. It should have been as BarnyardMonkey described SYS /C: That just copies the os system files from the floppy to the hard drive.

 

[AC]

hey guys, can the wrong translation method have symptoms like this?

well, the partition table is intact, so only the boot sector or fat is missing or damaged

do u have scandisk? hmm, i'm not sure whether it checks for mbr problems

i can let u "borrow" disk doctor for dos...

 

[BarnyardMonkey]

Sounds like to me,it got repartitioned somehow.and now it has to be formatted in order for it to be accessed by DOS,or windows.

so sounds like you need to format and get your drive working again,or try Usuls trick and hope for the best.
or maybe some kind of software that can maybe get it going.
which i don't know of any.
sorry.

Good Luck.

 

[doanh]

Now, I am desperate but I have two options.

1. I can "borrow" AC's disk doctor and see if that works
or
2. Try Usul' method.

On your method, I need clarification

1st fdisk/mbr - I did this already
2nd fdisk - remove partition
3rd do I reboot and then recreate the partition or do it right after I remove the partition?

Is there a recommendation of which ones to try first?
Thanks for sticking around to help.