No Fixed Disk?

aclane

I'm trying to install 98se on a P2 266 PC and it wont reconise the HDD. I've tried using a diferrent HDD and even tried the CDROM controller and still no joy. BIOS seems ok and even tried a good CMOS battery, but it still won't see the HDD.

It was working fine yesterday running 95. When I use FDISK, i get "NO fixed Disk Present".

IS my Mobo bust?? Can't think of anything else to try.
Any help would be great!

Sir Random

Check the jumper setting on the HD and make sure it's either Master or CS. If there are no guideline markings, try leaving the jumper off.

Does it recognise the CD/DVD drives?

whosurpaddy

have u checked your jumper settings?

pclancy

is the computers BIOS pickin it up? Can u actually hear the drive spinnin up and sure that al cables plugged in correctly?

OfflerCrocGod

If the CD-ROM is bootable get knoppix and stick it in see if it can find your HDD.

aclane

Originally posted by pclancy
is the computers BIOS pickin it up? Can u actually hear the drive spinnin up and sure that al cables plugged in correctly?

The BIOS is not picking it up. I tried jumpers, different IDE cables and i'm using a HDD that works fine on another PC..

BTW, what is knoppix??

whosurpaddy

knoppix is a linux distro that runs directly from the cd.. no instalation

aclane

I've tried everything. I think the mobo is bust. Wierd as it stoped working after i formatted

aclane

Now the BIOS sees the drive and i've partioned and formatted, but upon restart it says "Primary HDD not found" but BIOS sees it. When i try to install W98se it comes up with Windows Setup requires 442368 bytes to run. I swaped power cables and checked power management. I've just flashed the BIOS but still nothing has changed..

Capt'n Midnight

If you haven't swapped the cables (ie. drive is no longer at end of the first cable) the drive may be on the way out - sometimes they go intermittant before they die.

windows setup - looking for free memory - emm386.exe in win98 doesn't work (patch somewhere) - type mem or maybe chkdsk in dos prompt to see how much ram free.

copy the win98 folder a win98 folder on the hdd - boot up in same mode command prompt (No CD drivers using memory) and run setup /im /is /iq etc. from there.

aclane

The drive is fine but I can't access it. It’s reading the ram with no problems. It must be the mobo or ide controller. What if I put in a PCI ide controller? Is this possible? Are they expensive?

Ryaner

The problem with windows not starting is with ram. I'm thinking you have 32mb of ram yeah? It needs more usually for 98se to start.
When you say you cant access the drive your talking about in dos right? If it saying primary HD not found then run fdisk and set the current partion to be active. Partioning prob unset it.
As for ide controller. Yeah too much cost for a machine with that spec really.

aclane

Thanks Ryaner but I'm using 128Mb and the partation is active. I saw a controller in komplett for €18 that i might buy or might post a thread in wanted.

Ryaner

What is the exact error code your getting when trying to access the disk in dos? Stupid question but have you tried a different ide cable? I think you said something about the cdrom one so you prob have. (It's late and all)

As for the controller. That is quite cheap indeed. I though they were more expensive but it's been a while since I've looked at them since I've moved to sata now. Much simpler setup.

Actually you said the partion is active which means fdisk is reporting the drive meaning it can read the mbr of the disk. It would be interesting to see the error messages and what exactly your trying to do at the time. If fdisk is working a simple scandisk in dos "should" run. There is a possibly the fat tables are corrupt and not allowing disk access.

Capt'n Midnight

Originally posted by aclane
Setup requires 442368 bytes to run.

442368 bytes
442,326 bytes
442 KBytes
0.44 MB

It's conventional memory - part of the 640KB (0.64MB in the first MB of ram) - you know the stuff that gives "out of memory" errors - all becasue of backward compatability with the brain damaged memory management model of the 80286

Adding more RAM will not change the problem.

unkel

Originally posted by aclane
the partation is active

Are you 100% sure? It sounds this might very well be the issue. You can check this (and change it) by booting up from a windows 98 setup diskette and then running fdisk (it's on the diskette)

aclane

Well, I've just managed to install W2K Pro. But when i boot up i get the same message (NoHDD present) so i press F1 to continue and it boots fine. Bit annoying though..

Capt'n Midnight

If the disk missing happens before it starts loading windows - check in the BIOS in case it still thinks two drives are present - also check that the drive cable is in the correct connector on the mother board usually PRI (not SEC) or IDE 0 (not 1)

dazberry

Originally posted by aclane
Well, I've just managed to install W2K Pro. But when i boot up i get the same message (NoHDD present) so i press F1 to continue and it boots fine. Bit annoying though..

Just on off hand thought. Depending on the BIOS, it might have some settings like First Boot Device : Floppy, Second Boot Device: CDROM etc.

If your disk is say HD0 which isn't in the list, and then an option exists with something like Try other boot devices: True - it might give you this error. Otherwise as Capt' just said, if its really HD1/2/3 and HD0 is set as a boot device same thing may happen.

Hard to know without seeing the bios thou'. Also check to see if there's a detect HD option in the bios. This will look on all 2 channels for 4 drives.

D.