Hard Drive not detected?

[plowexvii]

Hey Guys,

I'm having trouble with multiple hard drives, and am not sure why! The pins on each one i test (one at a time) are set the master, and everything looks good to go. The only problem is...

If i boot without a boot disk, it says "OS not found" or something along those lines.

When booting with a boot disk (windows 98), i get into the command prompt. In which i try fdisk the C: and it gives me an invalid specification.

Also, sometimes when I try to run it, it says, "run-time error R6003 -interger divide by 0"

When trying to look at any other drives, A: and B: are the same (the boot disk) and it does not show any other drives there (My CD-ROM drive, or the HD).

I tried manually putting in my drives in bios, but it always resets as soon as i exit. Any clue as to what im doing wrong? Is there a special disk i could use? Thanks, and I am sorry i am a computer noobie

Phillip

 

[Big_j]

1 drive has to be master, the other has to be slave or cable select.
Also, since you're using Windows 98 you have to format the harddrive to FAT32 before you can see it in my computer.

I'm not sure where and if there is a disk managment tool in 98, but if there is one you should be able to find it through the control panel

 

[plowexvii]

Hey thanks for the quick reply!

I was testing one hard drive at a time. They are all set to master when i test them. The problem is the computer wont detect them, can't see them in bios. It also wont let me access the cd-rom drive in DOS. A and B drive are both the floppy disk drive, everything else shows as non-existent.


Any other help on this topic is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Phillip Lowe

 

[krimson_king]

they cant both be set as master. if the one with the os on it is set as slave, you might also encounter problems with it, but it can be done. what format are the hdds? do either of them come up if you try them individually?

 

[Big_j]

Hey thanks for the quick reply!

I was testing one hard drive at a time. They are all set to master when i test them. The problem is the computer wont detect them, can't see them in bios. It also wont let me access the cd-rom drive in DOS. A and B drive are both the floppy disk drive, everything else shows as non-existent.


Any other help on this topic is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Phillip Lowe

It's not the computer, it's windows (or dos). They have to be formated into a file format that they can read. If you go into the disk managment tools and look for a partition editor option or something like that you will be able to see the drives, you won't be able to use them or see them in "My Computer" until you format them into, your case, FAT32

 

[plowexvii]

Hey Guys thanks again for the replies. To answer the responses:

they cant both be set as master. if the one with the os on it is set as slave, you might also encounter problems with it, but it can be done.

I am testing each one at a time. There aren't two connected to the computer each time. Just one, and each are set to master.

what format are the hdds? do either of them come up if you try them individually?

I am unsure of the format, because nothing is coming up. My friend that gave me them said they had windows 2000 server on them, but i cant seem to get anything out of htem right now.

If you go into the disk managment tools and look for a partition editor option or something like that you will be able to see the drives, you won't be able to use them or see them in "My Computer" until you format them into, your case, FAT32

This sounds like a very good solution, but I cant see the drives... only if i could get into windows. Errrr....


Thank you all again for your replies! I'm thinking maybe they're all dead? Or I'm just really really stupid for an easy fix.

phil

 

[Big_j]

I just got the picture of your situation, I misunderstood you.
Just get any linux distro(not live cd), and use cfdisk or whatever it has. If they can't detect it then you most likely won't be able to detect them.