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#1
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New hard drive woes!
I just bought a new 40GB hard drive (Western Digital) installed it and
ran FDISK on it to set it up as one 20GB and two 10GB drives. After FDISK had finished with no apparent errors, I found that I only had two assigned drives C: (20GB) and D: (10GB). So I tried running FDISK to go back and repair whatever went wrong. But now FDISK won't run and gives me an "Error reading fixed disk" error. What did I do wrong and how can I fix it? I've already tried the FDISK /mbr trick but it appears to have had no effect. I download some diagnostic programs from Western Digital but they report no errors on the drive. They have a utility to write zeroes to the entire drive. Would this make it a "virgin" drive again or a doorstop? Any ideas? TIA, zophas. |
#2
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Are you sure your BIOS can see all 40GB? You may have reached a BIOS limitation. Workarounds include an add-on PCI IDE card,
Promise makes them, and BIOS overlays also called software translation driver or dynamic drive overlays. Examples are Disk Manager and EZ-Drive. BIOS updates are preferred. Next would be an add-on card. BIOS overlays are usually a last resort. -- Please de-spam my address if replying to me -------------------------------------------- "zophas" wrote in message ... I just bought a new 40GB hard drive (Western Digital) installed it and ran FDISK on it to set it up as one 20GB and two 10GB drives. After FDISK had finished with no apparent errors, I found that I only had two assigned drives C: (20GB) and D: (10GB). So I tried running FDISK to go back and repair whatever went wrong. But now FDISK won't run and gives me an "Error reading fixed disk" error. What did I do wrong and how can I fix it? I've already tried the FDISK /mbr trick but it appears to have had no effect. I download some diagnostic programs from Western Digital but they report no errors on the drive. They have a utility to write zeroes to the entire drive. Would this make it a "virgin" drive again or a doorstop? Any ideas? TIA, zophas. |
#3
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try using delpart.exe prog to del the partitions and start over.
you can download it here http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm ================================================== ASUS P4T533 mobo Intel P4 2.8 GHz 533MHz ASUS V8460 Ultra GeForce 4 Ti 4600 1024 Samsung 32-Bit RIMM 4200 1066MHz RAMBUS RD1-8X Bios Savior Enermax EG465P-VE FMA 430W PSU Creative Labs Audigy 2 Sony DRU-500AX DVD+-RW TDK VeloCD 48X16X48X CD-RW TOSHIBA SD-M1612 DVD Seagate 80GB 7200RPM Seagate 120GB 7200RPM WD 60GB 5400RPM WD 40GB 5400RPM Promise ULTRA 133 TX2 Controller Dlink DFE530TX+ PCI nic Motorola Surfboard SB3100 cable modem Linksys BEFSR41 router Windows XP Home SP1 Direct X 9.0 |
#4
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In article , zophas
writes I just bought a new 40GB hard drive (Western Digital) installed it and ran FDISK on it to set it up as one 20GB and two 10GB drives. After FDISK had finished with no apparent errors, I found that I only had two assigned drives C: (20GB) and D: (10GB). So I tried running FDISK to go back and repair whatever went wrong. But now FDISK won't run and gives me an "Error reading fixed disk" error. What did I do wrong and how can I fix it? I've already tried the FDISK /mbr trick but it appears to have had no effect. I download some diagnostic programs from Western Digital but they report no errors on the drive. They have a utility to write zeroes to the entire drive. Would this make it a "virgin" drive again or a doorstop? Any ideas? How old is your version of Fdisk? I had a problem with Fdisk on a floppy created with win98 that could not see the whole of an 80Gb HD. When I used a boot floppy created with WinME I had no such problem and could Fdisk and partition the whole drive. -- Peter Ives Remove ALL_STRESS only before sending me an email |
#5
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Try bootitng(.com) on it and get on their newsgroup.
server terabyteunlimited.com must set port 1198 newsgroup public.apps.bootitng bootitng is free to try, $30 to register. -- Ed Light Smiley :-/ MS Smiley :-\ "zophas" wrote in message ... I just bought a new 40GB hard drive (Western Digital) installed it and ran FDISK on it to set it up as one 20GB and two 10GB drives. After FDISK had finished with no apparent errors, I found that I only had two assigned drives C: (20GB) and D: (10GB). So I tried running FDISK to go back and repair whatever went wrong. But now FDISK won't run and gives me an "Error reading fixed disk" error. What did I do wrong and how can I fix it? I've already tried the FDISK /mbr trick but it appears to have had no effect. I download some diagnostic programs from Western Digital but they report no errors on the drive. They have a utility to write zeroes to the entire drive. Would this make it a "virgin" drive again or a doorstop? Any ideas? TIA, zophas. |
#6
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Just use the utility to write zeros and then repartition it.
It might work. I have used the utility before. It didnt do any damage. "zophas" wrote in message ... I just bought a new 40GB hard drive (Western Digital) installed it and ran FDISK on it to set it up as one 20GB and two 10GB drives. After FDISK had finished with no apparent errors, I found that I only had two assigned drives C: (20GB) and D: (10GB). So I tried running FDISK to go back and repair whatever went wrong. But now FDISK won't run and gives me an "Error reading fixed disk" error. What did I do wrong and how can I fix it? I've already tried the FDISK /mbr trick but it appears to have had no effect. I download some diagnostic programs from Western Digital but they report no errors on the drive. They have a utility to write zeroes to the entire drive. Would this make it a "virgin" drive again or a doorstop? Any ideas? TIA, zophas. |
#7
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Thanks for all the tips. I should have mentioned that the motherboard
was a new intel 865glc , so I can't see it not being able to see a 40GB drive. I did notice that the fdisk I used was off an old Win95 disk. That may have screwed everything up in the first place. Using a newer version of fdisk has not fixed anything. I'll try resetting the bios next and if that fails then I'll try the delpart.exe. If all that fails expect to see a long cry of HEEEELP over the weekend! Thanks again. zophas |
#8
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On Wed, 06 Aug 2003 22:57:15 +0200, zophas
wrote: I just bought a new 40GB hard drive (Western Digital) installed it and ran FDISK on it to set it up as one 20GB and two 10GB drives. After FDISK had finished with no apparent errors, I found that I only had two assigned drives C: (20GB) and D: (10GB). So I tried running FDISK to go back and repair whatever went wrong. But now FDISK won't run and gives me an "Error reading fixed disk" error. What did I do wrong and how can I fix it? I've already tried the FDISK /mbr trick but it appears to have had no effect. I download some diagnostic programs from Western Digital but they report no errors on the drive. They have a utility to write zeroes to the entire drive. Would this make it a "virgin" drive again or a doorstop? Any ideas? TIA, zophas. Are you running FDISK from a boot disk? - Or have you booted Win95/98 first? I had a similar problem long ago, moving up in hd size. It can be the BIOS not supporting larger than some 30-32GB. In my case it was the VIA mobo drivers instead. The hd worked as I installed the OS. Installed VIA drivers and rebooted, - total corruption. A new VIA kit solved the problem. ancra |
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