Help, help, help, major hard drive problem

J

Joannec

New Member
Hello. I have quite a serious problem on my old computer. It is old! Bought it in 1999 and its never had anything dont to it other than an extra memory thingy added.

I'm okay using computers but not very techie minded.

Yesterday, I downloaded window washer to clean my computer. I know its okay as I use it on my works computer.

Its done too good a job and appears to have deleted all my windows files. :eek:

When starting it up this morning, it began booting up and then stopped just after it went to the windows screen. I then got this

"No drives found, aborting installation

The following file is missing or corrupted C:\WINDOWS\HIM.SYS
Ditto C:\WINDOWSZDBLBUSS.SYS
Ditto C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
C:\>REM[HEADER]

Bad command of file name
Cannot find WIN.COM Unable to continue loading windows

C:\" and it then has the C prompt :confused:

I can't really afford to get it fixed but I have three years worth of photos saved on that computer from when my daughter was first born up to present day. I just want to get my computer up and running so I can get those photos back. The computer can then be trashed as I've got my mum's old computer, luckily she's recently got a new one.

Any help at all would be really appreciated.

Sorry for the essay and thanks for your time. :D

Joanne
 
Joannec said:
I just want to get my computer up and running so I can get those photos back. The computer can then be trashed as I've got my mum's old computer, luckily she's recently got a new one.
Click to expand...

If all you want is the photos you can easily put the harddrive from your old computer as a slave on your new computer and get the photos that way.
 
Wow, thanks for the speedy replies.

I'm not very techie minded. Could I have laymans directions on how to connect up my old computer to my new one?

Thanks.

Joanne
 
elmarcorulz said:
you could take the hard drive out, put it in your other computer, then take the files off of it.
Click to expand...

Do you mean take out the memory cards and put them in the new computer?
 
You computer has a harddrive in it where all your data is store it looks something like
PC-HARDDRIVE-L.jpg


You can take that out of your old computer and put it on your new computer first thing you will need to do is set the jumpers on the harddrive to slave. It should show you somewhere on the harddrive what jumper position stand for slave.

this pic should help you understand what i mean by changing the jumper
Jumpers.gif


Then you connect it to the same cable your other harrdive on on the other computer(unless there already 2 harddrives on the cable).

Start up the computer and you should have a d:\ drive which is the secound harddrive. YOu can then transfer all your pics to the main drive. If you like you can just keep both harddrives in and use both.
 
Well, I felt brave last night and dismantled my old computer and fitted the hard drive as an additional drive to my new computer (well I say new, I has no usb ports and no way to install them! :mad: ). I dug around on the net to get a bit more information before I attemped it.

Anyway, fitted the hard disk, changed the BIOS to read a second drive. Turned on the computer and it booted up normally. And does not see the second drive at all!! I've tried installing new hardware but it isn't seeing it.

What do I do??

Could it be because my old hard drive was FAT32 but the new computer isn't?

Any further suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Joanne
 
Could it be because my old hard drive was FAT32 but the new computer isn't?
Click to expand...

No, that shouldn't have anything to do with it. Check to make sure all your cables are connected securely into your old hard drive. When you turn the computer on, can you hear the old hard drive spin up? Also, what OS do you have on your computer (the one with both hard drives in it)?
 
ALSO! For ease of use we will call the old hard drive HD1 and the hd in the new *working computer HD2.

You need to make sure that there is only 1 slave and one master on each ribbon in the new workinc PC. Meaning the HD2 is ALWAYS master, and the HD1 will be a slave if on the same ribbon. But, if you installed it on the secondary ribbon (the one that plugs into the cdrom or dvd roms) it can be either slave or master, as long as there is only ONE of each... I am thinking he installed it with a jumper setting on the wrong ribbon. Hope this is the problem... Let us know.
 
I'm stumped.

The jump settings are correct - well I think so! On the second hard drive they are set to slave but the first hard drive doesn't have a guide on the top but I have left these untouched. There are two jumps on the first hard drive. :::: One going down on the left hand pins and one going across at the top of the 2nd and 3rd row.

I know that the power is plugged in and the leads are correct but when I switch on it is not finding the hard disk at all. I've set the bios to search for one on the initial settings but nothing.

Any further advice ??

Thanks
 
The following file is missing or corrupted C:\WINDOWS\HIM.SYS
Ditto C:\WINDOWSZDBLBUSS.SYS
Ditto C:\WINDOWS\IFSHLP.SYS
C:\>REM[HEADER]
Click to expand...
Well the only file that i recognize from there is the last one. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=258471

And does not see the second drive at all!! I've tried installing new hardware but it isn't seeing it.
Click to expand...
What OSes are involved?

The jump settings are correct - well I think so! On the second hard drive they are set to slave but the first hard drive doesn't have a guide on the top but I have left these untouched. There are two jumps on the first hard drive. :::: One going down on the left hand pins and one going across at the top of the 2nd and 3rd row.
Click to expand...
Well the picture posted above is just a guide ... ive seen some drives that use some funky jumper settings. In either case, when you first start up the computer, do you see the drives listed or no?
 
Hi, thanks for your reply.

Both hard drives are Windows 98 se.

The jump settings are definitely correct. The old hard hard drive has diagrams on the top and I went onto the site of the makers of the new hard drive and double checked.

???
 
Oh, and to answer your last question, it isn't seeing the old hard drive at all, just the hard drive the computer came with. It was seeing a 5 1/4 floppy for a while until I disabled boot floppy seek in the bios. But when I clicked on the 5 1/4 drive it was saying it wasn't accessible.

In the bios it is automatically set to look for a slave hard drive.
 
Right, doesnt seem to be working too well. Start from the beginning again, disconnect the old HD and reset the BIOS. Make sure that the MASTER drive (the working one) is on its own ribbon cable, DO NOT share a cable between the two drives. Make sure the old hard drive has a cable of its own and is set to SLAVE.
 
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