Western Digital harddrive (update)

Ok I followed the directions from the kind posters here but it only led to more problems.

First, a problem that I had BEFORE the new hard drive has been occurring again. The comp will just spontaneously shut down, but it doesn't COMPLETELY shut down, everything is gone - power, screen etc- but there's a little green light flashing on and off.

Next...I downloaded the Western Digital data lifeguard tools. It wouldn't let me format because it said there was no operating system. So I inserted the win98 boot disk someone else here told me to make and then it said that win95 (why it said 95 I don't know since it was a 98 boot disk) was incompatible with a drive bigger than 32 gig so it couldn't continue.

SO...I booted straight from the win98 disk...then i ran fdisk. Then I did format C: ....it formatted but I still get errors when I boot up. It says :

Invalid system disk. Insert new disk and press any key.

Does anyone know why this disk isn't working? As I said before, my previous hard drive is the exact same company, just half as big.

Also...in dos, even after it loads the generic cd drives, it won't let me access my cd rom. All drives except C attempt to read from A:

For example if I go D:\<command> it gives me a "drive A: is not ready" type error. What's up?

Ok I know this is a lot of stuff but I have no idea what is going on here really. I thought getting a new hard drive was no big deal but was I in for a surprise! I really appreciate any help you guys can offer.

 

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Original thread:
http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14450

 

OK

The CD will not be available in DOS unless you are loading drivers for it.

Do this (requires that sys.com be on the dos boot disk)

Boot to a:

from a:

type

sys c:

after it says system transferred

ctrl alt del to reboot

c:\


Mike

 

This may apply .

Windows doesn't deal with disks over 64gb, without this patch
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;q263044&
This patch allows fdisk to "see" larger drives.

 

Hi guys

Thanks for the help so far. Sorry it took so long to respond, I was stuck in NYC in the snow storm without comp access. Mike, what you said to do worked. I did sys c: and now the drive starts ok. I get a little win98 screen that flashes up and then I get a c: prompt.

However, I still am having this cd-rom problem. I know the cdrom is working because when i select boot-from-cd in bios, and put in my old NEC recovery disk, it boots from that (even though it won't let me do anything because i re-did the insides of the comp), this lets me know the cdrom is working.

If I just let the computer bootup to c:, it won't let me access cd rom drive at all(naturallY). D: E: both give me invalid drive specification or whatever. If I use the bootcd to load drivers, I get D: and E: prompts but they BOTH try to read the floppy, not my cd rom. Any suggestions? Could it be the way I have them connected? I have the harddrive as as primary master, with floppy on same ribbon as slave, and cdrom on its own as secondary master. Any ideas?
Thanks

 

You still have an empty drive. You now need to boot from the win98 boot floppy with the windows 98 CD in the cd drive.

After boot with cd rom support.

Go to the windows CD and type

setup

answer the questions and when it finishes you will have windows 98 installed on drive c: and will have access to the CD for other things.


Mike

 

If you boot up to C: without the Win98 CD boot floppy to load the driver then here is what you have.

An empty dirve C: with nothing but command.com. No driver for the CRROM. So if you boot to c: this way and type d: or dir d: they do not exist therefore you will get the invalid drive error.

The cables are correct since you booted from it and was able to sys the c: drive. It is impossible to cross up the floppy and IDE cables since the are different sizes.

solomon68 if you do not know this is the error you get trying to access a non existant drive and that you must have a DOS cdrom driver loaded or windows before you have CD access then you need some in person help. See if you can find a friend or relative to help you.

We will try to help you as best we can, so begin by doing what I directed in my last message and boot from the floppy with win98 cd in, and change to the cd and type

SETUP

Follow the instructions from there. I believe this is going to be our last easy chore.

Mike

 

I'd just like to thank all of you guys who responded. I appear to be up and running without any problems (for now!). Things seem to be working fine. So thanks again for all the help and there is probably a 60% chance I'll be back in two weeks with another problem, but I hope not.