Urgent Help Please, Windows Install fucked...

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Originally Posted by Virtualbody1234

Sorry but what you say is very unclear to me.

You say you did as I suggested? Could you "see" the data on the drive?

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I did as you said, got a new fresh 20gb drive and installed windows on it, runs fine im using it right now to post this. The second i connect either of my other hdd's (the 250gb and the 160gb) BAM! the pc refuses to boot up windows. iv tried, doing it as master and slave, iv tried different positions in the case, a whole new IDE cable. I even tried it in a whole different pc. As soon as i plug either or those two drives into any pc the pc refuses to boot. No program can view the data or even see the disc and i cannot find a way to format it.

true tales of knoppix coming to the rescue. it also recomends a few tools that maybe able to help you.
http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/...knpxhks_1.html

sorry i have not read the whole thread yet but i wanted to give you something to do before you wiped the drive.

edit: gpart

howto

What model HDD is it? Have you tried the drive diagnostics?

Only thing I can think of to mess up a HDD this bad is if you have a problem with your BIOS. I have heard that there are viruses around that can take root in your bios and play all kinds of havoc with your pc. If you wanted to risk it you could maybe try the broken HDD in another pc entirely?

Will your BIOS recognise the broken drive?

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Originally Posted by sammydee

Only thing I can think of to mess up a HDD this bad is if you have a problem with your BIOS. I have heard that there are viruses around that can take root in your bios and play all kinds of havoc with your pc. If you wanted to risk it you could maybe try the broken HDD in another pc entirely?

Will your BIOS recognise the broken drive?

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Iv tried on two different pc's.

250gb = Maxtor
160gb = Hitachi Deskstar

No VB1234 havnt tried yet as i cannot get anything but the bios to even noticed they are there.

@4play - I'll have a read thanks, and "before you format" i can't even fucking format :angry:

If all else fails and you really want to wipe the disks, try the attached prog. You can only run it from a DOS boot disk, there are instructions enclosed.

It just wipes the first 128 sectors so it is very fast, but it is enough to make any utilities think the disk is blank.

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Originally Posted by lynx

If all else fails and you really want to wipe the disks, try the attached prog. You can only run it from a DOS boot disk, there are instructions enclosed.

It just wipes the first 128 sectors so it is very fast, but it is enough to make any utilities think the disk is blank.

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Thanks, Im gonna give it a try! Lucky its only DOS, windos refuses to boot with either disc attached :(

Update:

Tried with the 160gb and it sapped it, i then went into partion magic and it showed it there so i formatted it to NTFS, however my 20gb refuses to boot while the 160gb is attached, even though its formatted now. So still the same problems i can just see the partion in DOS programs now. I tried to KillDisk it but waited like 30mins and it didnt even do 1%. When i boot them together in the BIOS it shows:

Master: NONE
SLAVE: @

But then i take out the Slave and it shows the master 20gb drive.

The 250gb drive just refused to be zapped and didnt show anything in the BIOS.... i think the 250 maybe fucked...as in hardware fucked.

It can't possibly be the jumper settings can it?

I remember trying to use a drive set to cable select once, together with another drive set to master, and it wouldn't let me boot at all. But nah, you know to set that right or you are using sata, right?

It sounds weird that both hd's won't work tho'. If it was just the one, hardware errors might start to seem really probable.

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Originally Posted by SnnY

It can't possibly be the jumper settings can it?

I remember trying to use a drive set to cable select once, together with another drive set to master, and it wouldn't let me boot at all. But nah, you know to set that right or you are using sata, right?

It sounds weird that both hd's won't work tho'. If it was just the one, hardware errors might start to seem really probable.

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I tried with no jumpers on my 20gb and slave jumpers on the fucked hdd's i was trying, and then i tried master on the 20gb and slave on the fucked hdd and thyen i tried no jumpers on all of them :( no there all IDE. Its wierd for me as well, as if i did something and they both got fucked.

Iv got the 160gb formatted the NFSu but still refueses to boot with the 20gb in. Im currently typing as fast as i cna to type up 25 pages onto pc :dry: and backing up every paragrahy. As soon as im done later on im gonna remove the 20gb so its just got the formatted 160gb and try and install windows on it, as all my partion programs can see it and view it now ;) .

No luck on the 250gb hdd though :no: still unformattable, un viewable and only the bios even knows its there.