Hard drive error/caused by partition magic?

Hello all. Here we go....
I used partition magic to partition a 20gig 2.5" drive installed in one of my desktop systems with an IDE adapter. Windows will not recognize the drive after using PM, before all was fine. I have tried booting with several boot cd's/floppys. The best I can get is when using win98 boot cd-"invalid partition table". I was stupid when first using PM as I did not make emergency discs at the time. I have tried to make PM's emergency discs after the fact but they are drive dependant(only work with recognized drive at time discs were made). Heres the real kicker...when I enter bios and and have it auto-detect attached drives it finds the 20gig no problem:however, when the computer boots up and auto-detects drives I get "primary slave", or wherever the drive may be attached to failure. I can not figure out why it will recognize the drive one minute and not the next. When I run FDISK i get message that no logical drives are attached. PLEASE HELP!!! Thanks all.

Josh

Bjoshvm

Newbie Poster

4 posts since Jul 2005

Reputation Points: 10

Solved Threads: 0

6 Years Ago

Hello,

I think the problem is that you no longer have an active partition on that drive.

Install the problem drive back into the computer, and have it be the only hard drive on line. Add the CD-ROM so that it can boot your Win 98 CD, or you can boot with a Win 98 DOS floppy disk. Get to the point of a C: and run FDISK /MBR

This should reset the master boot record. Then Reboot, and try to get into FDISK again, and manage your partitions.

Christian

kc0arf

Posting Virtuoso

Team Colleague

1,937 posts since Mar 2004

Reputation Points: 121

Solved Threads: 57

6 Years Ago

Hello,

I think the problem is that you no longer have an active partition on that drive.

Install the problem drive back into the computer, and have it be the only hard drive on line. Add the CD-ROM so that it can boot your Win 98 CD, or you can boot with a Win 98 DOS floppy disk. Get to the point of a C: and run FDISK /MBR

This should reset the master boot record. Then Reboot, and try to get into FDISK again, and manage your partitions.

Christian

I have trried that, and just tried it again for good measure. When I type fdisk at command promp or fdisk/mbr i get error message "No fixed discs present". Which brings me back to before, bios will recognize the drive prior to boot up, but when the computer begiins to post and does the automatic drive check it for some reason can no longer recognize the drive. Any more suggestions? Thanks agian.
Josh

Bjoshvm

Newbie Poster

4 posts since Jul 2005

Reputation Points: 10

Solved Threads: 0

6 Years Ago

I would try booting a knoppix cd and using the linux tools to repartition it.

Thong_Ispector

Practically a Master Poster

638 posts since Nov 2004

Reputation Points: 16

Solved Threads: 19