Hard drive inaccessable?

Question

my niece's system won't boot up,asking for system disk.
When I put in system disk it goes thro' the routine of copying files then comes up "this system appears to have no hard drive".
I put her drive into my system as a slave but the only option I have is to format drive. Any way of by-passing this as she has loads of family pics etc. that she cannot replace. Before I get reminded of the importance of 'back up' I know!!!!

Answer 1

Here are the combinations that you should try.

Set it to CS (Cable Select) and put it on the slave position on the Primary cable.

Set it to SLAVE and put it on the slave position on the Primary cable.

Set it to CS (Cable Select) and put it on the MASTER position on the Secondary cable. (remove CD drive if necessary)

Set it to MASTER and put it on the MASTER position on the Secondary cable. (remove CD drive if necessary)

Set it to SLAVE and put it on the slave position on the Secondary cable.

Set it to CS (Cable Select) and put it on the slave position on the Secondary cable.

You may find that your old drive has compatibility issues with your primary MASTER hard drive. You might have some luck with other configurations.

If none of these things work.... you are DOOMED. Sorry.

Answer 2

Whatever you do, proceed with caution.

Step 1: Completely remove the drive and set the pins so the drive is a MASTER.

Step 2: Reconnect the drive and verify the connections are properly seated (on both ends). Connect the hard drive power cord as well (of course)

Step 3: Turn the system on. Do you hear the hard drive spinning up? If so, keep going. If not, recheck your connections.

Step 4: If it still cannot access the drive, then try botting from the floppy (the hard drive MUST be a master).

Step 5: If it still fails some more and you've lost all hope, do the following:

Remove the old hard drive and set it in a safe place.
Buy a new hard drive and install it. YOu'll need to re-install the operating system. Hopefully, you still have the system disks.
Power off the computer.
On the OLD drive, set it as a SLAVE and install it into the system IN ADDITION TO THE DRIVE THAT YOU JUST INSTALLED.
Boot up and you should be able to recover your pictures and other personal files (wink wink).

Hope it works.

Answer 3

OK here is what to do open up the pc and check the cables are in correctly and the right way round (red side of cable to pin1 which is marked on the hard drive).... second if this is the only hard drive in the computer the jumper should be set to master and not slave.. once you've done that check your bios settings for boot settings (as this can easily be changed by accident) and check that it is looking for the hard drive and that the hard drive is listed in the bios it's self.... if that's ok and but still doing the same thing then once you have the dos screen type C: to see if it will access the hard drive if it doesn't type in fdisk /mbr which will repair you boot record and if that doesn't work then get a new hard drive. as this could have been caused by a boot sector virus so get a virus scanner when you buy the hard drive

Answer 4

I feel that there is something called File system Incompatibilty Problem with your PC and the Hard Drive. May be her disc contains the file system that is not supported by your OS (Like Win 98 not supporting NTFS). if that is the problem then try that disc somewhere else where the File system is supported.

Other wise you can install some thing like a Datarecovery software on your PC, format the drive and then do a recovery from that and copy the important data.

Answer 5

Sounds like a bad sector has corrupted one or more of the system files or possibly even the MBR or something. What you might want to try doing is run a disk scaner over the disk from your system, maybe just maybe that will recover the files and you won't have to worry about it any more. However if it does work I would suggest investing in a new drive ASAP

Answer 6

There are programs which will recover files from a corrupt disk or replace the boot sector. Recovering files from a disk where the File Allocation tables are corrupted is not at all easy if the files are fragmented and the parts are not easily identifiable.

The good news may be that it is only the boot sector which may be damaged or corrupted and there is a chance that if that were repaired, the disk may be readable.

The bad news is that there is no guarantee.

Answer 7

http://www.drivesavers.com

You want to recover all the data beofre trying to formatt the drive. But since you already tried inserting the Operating System disk, then most likely it has formatted your drive already meaning that all the data was erased. It sounds like your HD is bad and needs to be replaced. Since drives are cheap at Compusa or Circuitcity (the ones with mail in rebates) then I would recommend getting one instead of taking the PC to get repaired.

Answer 8

Ouch! Sounds like the disk has gone to electronics heaven. You should go to specialists who will extract any data they can from the drive (your sisters pics) It's expensive but like you said they are irreplaceable and since you didn't make any backups what choice do you have? They'll slip the platter (disc) into a new case and read what they can off it. Do not format it or you will make it really difficult to get anything off it.

Answer 9

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Answer 10

Sounds like the disc has been corrupted or damaged - it needs formatting to allow it to write to the disc.

Best thing is to take it to a professional data recoverer who may be able to salvage some files.