I might've missed it but did not see mention if you had tried booting
into DOS. Not booting into Windows and then using a DOS shell or by
exiting Windows back into DOS. Just booting straight into DOS real
mode. For Windows 9x, you can hit, I think, F5 or F8 to get a menu and
then select to boot into DOS (and without loading anything in config.sys
and autoexec.bat). Otherwise, use a DOS bootable floppy (and rename
config.sys and autoexec.bat so nothing in them gets loaded). Can you
see your drive now?

Hi there, thanks for the suggestion... I have tried this, the problem is
that it's not getting even that far... it won't even recognise the drive as
being bootable, and that's also the case with the floppy drive.


Have you tried booting into DOS and then ran the setup.exe to install
Windows to see if it then detects the hard drive okay? I'm wondering if
the MBR (master boot record) might be fouled up or infected. From a DOS
bootable floppy that has the FDISK program on it, run:

fdisk /mbr
to replace the MBR with the one from Microsoft. By booting up without a
diskette in the floppy drive (and assuming the BIOS is configured to
look at A: before C: for a boot drive), you do not load whatever might
be in the MBR on the hard drive.

I have booted directly into Window's Setup, but it hangs during the setup
unless, as mentioned, I unplug the hard drive and then plug it back in after
the setup has started... and then I have once let the setup format the hard
drive and install windows, but at the point of rebooting into windows it
fails to find a boot device.


Another thought is that you say that you format the drive on one host
and then move it to another. The drive geometry used by the BIOS in one
machine may not be the same translation geometry recognized and used by
another. Sometimes you can move a drive without incident, sometimes
not. If you can boot into DOS real mode using a bootable floppy, and if
the drive is recognized as existing under that instance of DOS, then try
using FORMAT on the host in which the drive is to be used.

I've never heard of drives formatted on one machine not working on others,
but as I did format it once on the host machine, this as an issue is ruled
out.

Thanks for the suggestions though... it's really stumped me, and I've got to
the point of almost giving up and paying for it to be fixed now... (Well,
getting the friend to, as it's his machine!)

Simon