Re: Won't detect HDD
 

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/...ilities-c.html The link showed up from a copy and paste im not sure if the program is here or not,I think the tools listed on pauls link are zero formatting utilities so the right one for the drive will work

From what ive read the low level format defines the paramiters of the platters/heads etc

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

agh, I'l just do it anyway, 40gb drives cost zilch nowadays anyway.

What's getting me before I do it though, is the fact that the drives working fine bar being recognised on the post screen.. AND the fact that the primary slave cd rom drive is also not being recognised on post....

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Have you tried them on secondary ide? maybe theres an ide problem on the mobo,or even a new lead maybe just an idea

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Was going to, but I really CBA :p:... the fact that there was a boot sector virus as well on the drive leads me to believe that it's them thats the problem anyway.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

why would that stop your cd showing?worst case senario maybe virus done something to bios,Ive never seen this and do not know its possible,does the cd show up with the hdd taken off?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Just tried them on secondary and same problem...... looks like I'l try the LLF then.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

From fujitsu
Looks like that is what they mean when they say pseudo formatting.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Glad I didn't jump in :rolleyes:

Just detected and booted the HDD fine when using the other IDE cable, seems like its that.

Funny how it just 'went' all of a sudden though :confused::confused:

Nothing had been tampered with inside the case, it just messed up after the BSOD had happened. This normal? confused:

What about the virus on the BS? Worthwhile doing a LLF anyway, or just risk it and leave it ?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

If its working now I would leave it :) glad its sorted

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Cheers for all the help, paul.. zing and bdav :)

Will using a 40 wired IDE cable as opposed to one of the newer 80 wired cables make much difference to a HDD that's running at 5200RPM ?

Reason being I don't have any of the 80pin cables on me :(...

I have a theory that it's the 80 pin cables that's the problem with the post screen not detecting the drives. I'l give it a try tommorow, I'l use a working one out of mine and test it in this comp, if that doesn't work then..... :confused: :D

Cheers.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

what wouldn't work is using a 40 wire cable & having the drives set on 'cable select' - that only works with 80 wire cables :)

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

DO NOT low level format your drive unless you want to buy a new one and would like a good big paper weight. Get a dos boot floppy and boot to dos. Run fdisk and make sure that the partition you installed windows on is set as the active partition. The pc always boots the active partition on any given disk. If the wrong partition is marked as active then use the change active partition option to select the correct one. If this doesn't work then get back to the dos prompt and type in


C:> fdisk /mbr

Then try and reboot.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

For removing a boot sector virus, you should not rely on fdisk /mbr. Even Microsoft warn against this.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Ah

I thought he'd already removed the virus and just couldn't get the machine to boot.

I believe that the equivalent winxp commands in the console are fixboot and fixmbr. This is off the top of my head so may not be 100% accurate.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

So will it make much difference using 40 wired IDE cables as opposed to 80 wired?