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no fixed disks present- what now?

Discussion in 'Windows XP' started by johnd, 2003/08/24.

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  1. 2003/08/24
    johnd

    johnd Inactive Thread Starter

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    Deskbook AMD Athlon XP 2000 + pro

    40GB 2.5" HDD

    512MB ram

    XP home

    no floppy drive


    Hi,
    I have tried to re-format my HDD and have come to a bit of a mess. After losing every thing from my desktop except my wallpaper, I decided to run the re-load cd which came with the system. It got to 51% and then froze.

    I contacted the company over a premium rate line and after 25 mins they could do nothing. They sent me a Windows ME start up disk.This didn't get me booted up. Any way to cut the story short, I decide to format the drive. Somewhere along the line I got totally confused and this is the result.

    When I try to boot up with Win ME disk, after choosing boot up with cd support I get:Win ME has detected that drive c does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition. There are severall possible causes:
    1 The drive may need to be partioned. To create a partition on the drive, run FDISK from the MS-DOS command prompt.

    2 This mentions 3rd party disk partioning which is not applicable.

    3 This mentions viruses

    The diagnostic tools were successfully loaded to drive c

    To view help type help and press enter

    A:\>

    I typed FDISK ( I know it's not right but I wanted to see what happened)

    I got :
    No fixed disks present
    A:\>

    Can anyone tell me where to go from here and hold my hand as I attempt to get the machine back on track.

    Thanx.
     
    johnd,
    #1
  2. 2003/08/24
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Maybe because it's NTFS.
    Type - format C:

    or alternatively go into the BIOS and make sure that the boot order is CD > Floppy > HD
    Insert your recovery CD and reboot - I've absolutely no idea if your recovery disk is bootable or not. If it is bootable you should see a prompt along the lines ' Press any key to boot from CD'. Any written instructions with the recovery CD?

    Fingers crossed :)
     
    PeteC,
    #2


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  4. 2003/08/24
    johnd

    johnd Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi Pete,
    Tried format c: got bad command or file name.

    No floppy drive on this machine.

    The one page which deals with the recovery or reload cd states that the recovery diskette should be inserted into the floppy drive. Not much good when your machine doesn't have one.

    When I tried the reload cd I get the message:

    0 partitions defined

    gdisk(e) no such fixed disk -- 1

    (flashing) Due to partition Creation Failure, MBR has been wiped

    x:\>

    Any ideas, I need to partition the HDD but don't know where to go from here.
     
    johnd,
    #3
  5. 2003/08/24
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Sorry to tell you that, without a Win XP installation CD you may well be up the creek without the proverbial. :(

    This may be the lifeline - How to Use the FDISK Tool and .....

    Sounds like you have an Me startup disk burned to Cd?
    In this case you will need to switch to the drive letter of the CD as clearly A: does not exist (missed that when reading your first post)
     
    PeteC,
    #4
  6. 2003/08/25
    johnd

    johnd Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi Pete,

    Your right about the ME cd, however , I was thinking that I could install windows ME instead of XP. From the little I've used XP I think I prefer ME.

    I downloaded a lot of stuff from the microsoft site last night. I am about to digest it tonight. One explanation mooted on the site said the HDD could be faulty, a suggestion which was made by a friend of mine.

    Anyway thanks for now.
     
    johnd,
    #5
  7. 2003/08/25
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Strongly suggest you go for 98SE or Win XP - Me has few supporters :)

    BTW you can run XP to look like 98/Me by using Windows Classic theme, etc.
     
    PeteC,
    #6
  8. 2003/08/26
    johnd

    johnd Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi,
    Have been trying for 4 hours to partition this machine. Everytime I type FDISK I get parameter format not correct. I have tried every thing I know and can find to enter the correct parameter, all to no avail.

    Does anybody know a site where I can find a list of parameters.
     
    Last edited: 2003/08/27
    johnd,
    #7
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