Won't detect HDD
 

Formatted and reinstalled windows to a computer the other day - before setup even started I realised there was a boot sector virus on the PC (Trend AV - presume this is preloaded in bios... indicated there was).

Anyway, I assumed deleting the partition and formatting would get rid of the virus... It formatted anyway, and I reinstalled XP.

Windows loaded fine, proceeded to reinstall office, and then installed AVG AV. Did a final reboot to test everything was working before I gave it back when upon trying to load the CP it BSOD'd. It said dumping physical memory, so I was going to leave it until that had finished when lo and behold the bloody power failed, and the computer rebooted.... upon rebooting on the original post screen it wouldn't detect either primary master or slave.. (This being the HDD and one of the CD Drives). There's 4 things on the IDE Channels btw, a hdd and cd rom on one channel and 2 cd roms on the other channel - yeah not ideal.

So anyway, it will not detect either the primary master, HDD or primary slave CD Rom on the post screen now.

Soooo, I managed to load setup again via one of the other CD rom drives, managed to repartition the original HDD AGAIN, and copied the setup files over to it - so its obv. working!

However upon rebooting and setting the boot order to HDD first, it will not detect the HDD and as such won't boot from it.

My thoughts are that the boot sector virus has buggered something up.. I did scan via AVG to see if it'd detect it in winblows but as it was the free ed. only it didn't see anything.

Any ideas? A low level format a cure? Anyone direct me to any decent programs? :confused:

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

What make of drive is it?
http://www.ariolic.com/activesmart/l...el-format.html

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Pauls right - That will sort out just about any problems like that - brings the HDD to a factory state

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

What does a low-level format accomplish that a standard format will not?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Standard level formats make the hard drive/os etc "think" there is nothing there - Low level literaly goes and writes "0" on every sector of the disk.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

AFAIK it formats at the lowest level (machine code - 0s and 1s), reverts everything back to 0's.... otherwise known as zero formatting.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Low level format writes zeros to the entire drive where as I think a standard format just re-writes the FAT tables etc. The data isn't actually deleted from the drive.
I'll let someone else explain it properly lol
3 answers in 2 minutes, must be about right then :erm:

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Fujistu drive...

Cases as well, it's just took me 10 minutes to open this one :angry:... Why make them so difficult to open? :(

Will give it a go now.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

I thought low level formatting is something done by the disk manufacturer and can't be changed?

Maybe booting with a windows 98 start up disk and running an fdisk partition deletion,then maybe either an unconditional format A:format c:/u/s (think thats right) or an fdisk /mbr to have a bash at sorting the boot record

from a google search http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatLow-c.html

http:///warn.gifWarning: You should never attempt to do a low-level format on an IDE/ATA or SCSI hard disk. Do not try to use BIOS-based low-level formatting tools on these newer drives. It's unlikely that you will damage anything if you try to do this (since the drive controller is programmed to ignore any such LLF attempts), but at best you will be wasting your time. A modern disk can usually be restored to "like-new" condition by using a zero-fill utility.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

FJ-IDE Drive Initializer Utility...

from http://www.fel.fujitsu.com/home/drivers.asp?L=en&CID=1

is that the one I want?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Cheers guys :tu:

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Yep looks like a zero format tool to me :)

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Is that not the same thing though?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

That link doesn't work zing, any chance of a fix?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

mmmm - what to do?

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?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Just tried a new 80 wired cable (from my PC, deffo working) - and it's having the same problem.

Detects fine with the 40 wired, won't with the 80 wired.

Any ideas fellas ? Setting somewhere?

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

you could try resetting bios defaults,or maybe update bios,try with the 80 cable going into bios and manually detecting drives,it may need this with the 80 but auto detects on 40

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

hmm suppose I could do.

I've tried getting bios to detect the drives with the 80 cable but it won't.... I'l try using the 40 cable, writing down the settings and manually entering them.

'tis weird though.

Unplug the HDD and just put the CD ROM drive on the master ide, and it detects it fine... with the HDD on the channel it buggers it up. However, it's fine with the 40 cable..... ARGH!
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nah ^^ that didn't work - thinking a borked HDD tbh.

However it'l let me install windows on it if I boot from CD on another channel, just won't pick up on POST.

May just go for the zero formatting...... someone said don't or you'l just need another disc, but there was another app mentioned earlier in the thread - not as harsh as zero formatting.. might give that a try.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

80 pin cables were introduced with the advent of ata66 drives. Using a 40 pin cable will reduce the throughput of the hdd to that of an ata33 drive. If you have a cdrom attached to the same cable as the hdd then your throughput is reduced anyway because the cdrom will drag the hdd down to its speed so, with the cdrom attached to the same cable, you are getting ata33 speeds from your hdd regardless of the cable used. So you may as well run with the 40 pin cable. Out of curiosity, does the drive work on the 80 pin cable if the cdrom is not attached? Sounds like it might be a conflict between the 2 different devices.

Re: Won't detect HDD
 

Nope - wont detect when it's the only device on that channel....

Might just be me but it seemed a bit slower on the 40 wired cable....