HDD problem

**BawA** · 10-17-2007, 05:28 PM

on 1st run yes it did installed the driver, and yes it shows up in Disk management but its
labeled as unallocated and unreadable

**lynx** · 10-17-2007, 06:45 PM

If it is unallocated, that simply means that there are no recognisable partitions. Try creating a partition.

If that doesn't work, unreadable may mean that Windows thinks it is broken. If you've only got a single drive on the cable, and it is set to slave, that may well be the problem - you can't have a slave without a master.

My suggestion is that you set any devices that you are going to connect via that cable to "CS" (cable select). Once you've set them in that mode you shouldn't have to worry about changing the jumpers ever again, the cable position will sort it out.

If you are going to connect 2 drives to the cable, it doesn't matter which is connected where, the one at the end of the cable will be the master, the one in the middle will be the slave.

However, if you are only going to connect a single drive then you MUST connect it to the end of the cable. That's because there must always be a master on the cable, and with CS that's the end position.

Once you've set the jumpers correctly, go into bios and select IDE auto-detect. Make sure the bios detects the drives properly. If it detects them but windows still doesn't like your drive then it is probably faulty.

**zapjb** · 10-18-2007, 01:13 AM

Or bad IDE cable.

**BawA** · 10-18-2007, 06:39 AM

Originally Posted by lynx

If it is unallocated, that simply means that there are no recognisable partitions. Try creating a partition.

If that doesn't work, unreadable may mean that Windows thinks it is broken. If you've only got a single drive on the cable, and it is set to slave, that may well be the problem - you can't have a slave without a master.

My suggestion is that you set any devices that you are going to connect via that cable to "CS" (cable select). Once you've set them in that mode you shouldn't have to worry about changing the jumpers ever again, the cable position will sort it out.

If you are going to connect 2 drives to the cable, it doesn't matter which is connected where, the one at the end of the cable will be the master, the one in the middle will be the slave.

However, if you are only going to connect a single drive then you MUST connect it to the end of the cable. That's because there must always be a master on the cable, and with CS that's the end position.

Once you've set the jumpers correctly, go into bios and select IDE auto-detect. Make sure the bios detects the drives properly. If it detects them but windows still doesn't like your drive then it is probably faulty.

ok as said i did, i enabled CS by putting jumber on it, i attached end cable to the HDD and bios detects it but as before its same nor application nither windows see the partition and cant even make one. cables cant be faulty because they work when attached to dvd rom's.
here is some video's and screen shots.

btw is there any program which can recover it, like maybe boot record is lost or something which was required to run it. am sure something went wrong when i formated it for the 2nd time cuz prior to that atleast partition was showing up and all option were available for it, but now only "Update MBR" option is there.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feauDeLHojU[/youtube]

**lynx** · 10-18-2007, 09:13 PM

Could you scratch a little harder please, my nose still itches.

You can only have 4 entries in the master partition table, and the message seems to indicate that Vista thinks they are all used. Since it is not telling you what they are, they may be corrupted.

This dos program will clear the first 128 sectors of any drive. If successful it will clear any boot and partition sector corruption and allow you to use the drive. Warning - the program does no checking of drive contents, so I suggest you disconnect all other drives before using this program. You have to run it from a dos prompt, not a command prompt within windows, so you will need a dos boot disk.

**BawA** · 10-19-2007, 05:35 AM

nvm i didnt read your last words "Dos boot disk"
btw can you give an inside look of this progy cuz i have no idea what to do once i run it, will it ask me which drive to check or it will check on the copied drive. cuz you scared me by saying warning

ohh what was the command to list the drives on DOS?

**lynx** · 10-19-2007, 06:41 PM

There's a text file that tells you what to do.

At the dos prompt, type "Zap 0" to clear the drive connected as primary master, "Zap 1" to clear the drive connected as primary slave, "Zap 2" to clear the drive connected as secondary master, and so on. I'm not sure how it deals with SATA drives (or even if it works with them at all).

It doesn't give you any warnings that the drive has data on it, so if you accidentally pick the wrong drive it will clear that one. That's why I suggested you unplug any other drives so they can't be affected.