Drive can't be read, files there

My two cents then I'll leave this to those much wiser.

I've done a lot of file salvage and usually just throw a "hooped" drive into another machine with the same OS, copy it to a new partition on a known good drive and then work from that - usually don't even worry about trying to ultimately save the OS just want good copies of whatever else I can get. My potential (hope not) problem is dealing with "hooped drives" that involve a RAID stripe which may or may not be broken. However, I do appreciate your encouragement and a most refreshing positive attitude.

As to BB advice on drives with evidence of bad sectors - its good advice - usually when things start going south, they keep going south and, at an accelerating pace. Its called drive failure. A few bad sectors today leads to more tomorrow and a whole bunch the day after. Keep your eye on it and if you start to see a significant jump or an ever increasing amount - don't wait until the day after tomorrow to replace that puppy. You could wind up getting "hosed and hooped" both at the same time.

Now, as to the comment that took me from being a curious reader to making a remark - drive overlays or what I call third party garbage. Throw that drive in another machine and slave it (not just CS), then FDISK both the drive's MBR and the drive itself. That should take care of your MaxBlast.

OK, I'm going back to just reading again .............

 

What may be wild thoughts from some of my own past HD troubles.

If the MaxBlast and the word overlay are one and the same and are the items that make a BIOS see a drive larger than what it normally would.

If it is the same then it is not needed unless the BIOS will not see the full drive without it. ( should be the FIRST Thing ( and was with my new 80gig ) to check out when installing a new dirve.

If this is the case ( overlay ) then the machine must ALWAYS be booted from the HD first. Then choose either HD or Floppy.

3--If indeed this is the case and is not done NOTHING will read the drive correctly.

Also if XP is indeed being used the Overlay * MAY NOT * work properly as XP boots quite differently that 98 or ME.

XP is not designed with the old stuff in mind at at. ( So I am finding out ).

BillyBob

 

BillyBob: I hope your post was intended for the experts who read here, 'cause the extent of my ignorance is becoming clearer, or, What the heck are you talking about?

The new C drive has XP Home installed as what XP refered to as a "clean" install. I was under the impression that a clean install would wipe and format the drive. When I did the new install, I chose NTFS file system. The install process displayed a screen which presented a progress bar "formatting ".

Booting from XP cd, XP repair install cannot find the "clean" installation on the new C drive. This is the same problem that prevented repair attempt on old C drive. I don't know if that would have solved the problem, but it sure would have been nice to be able to try.

That now precludes the ability to do a repair on current C drive. I'd like to try overcome that.

MS tech support says XP repair can't find the installed XP because Max Blast was used when drive was first added to machine.

Now, if XP formatted the drive when it was installing itself, I would think that nothing Max Blast did would remain. If it does, and formatting the drive does not eliminate it, what if anything will?

 

It may be ( I do not know for sure ) but I do not recall whether you did a FDISK /MBR before formating or not. It sure will not hurt to try. Because things as they are you will continue to have problems. And XP is already telling you that by not being able to do a repair.

And also Partition Magic is telling you there is a problem.

If MaxBlast was used and if FDISK /MBR will clean t out or not I do not know. I have never used fdisk /mbr.

But I believe you may have learned something here. Next time you add a new drive check to see if the BIOS sees the full drive first. And if it does then forget MaxBlast or Western Digitals counter part.

And as far as I know any MB of '96 or later does not need an overlay to see up at least 60gig. My BIOS saw the FULL 80gig of my new drive right off.

BillyBob

 

Thanks BillyBob, now it is becoming clearer.

 

Yes, FDISK /MBR the problem drive - it will appear that n othing happened but don't worry, it did. Then FDISK the problem drive. Use a Win98 or ME boot disk to do this. Then use your XP disc to do your format and install.

To eliminate any other snafu's, I usually do this with the problem drive jumpered as slave in another system. Also works with hidden partitions and unmounted raid stripes left over on single drives. May sound seat of the pants, but it works.

 

Hi to all:

Good News for a change:

Got drive D off of Partition Magic's "Bad" list!! After reading through this whole post again, and Rockster2U's & BillyBob's last posts, I figured getting that drive completely clean, including deleting partitions, might do the trick. Using Disk Management in XP, deleted D and E partitions and reformatted.

Now with no partitions on D, Partition Magic has dropped it's "Bad" listings, shows it as a normal drive and appears willing to do whatever I want , such as convert to FAT 32.

That was going to be my last attempt to fix the D drive, I was ready to take it out of the machine for good and just thought I would try one more fix before trashing it. So, Glory Be, I don't have to trash a working drive, Partition Magic's drive geometry requirements have apparently been met.

About to convert all to FAT 32 with Partition Magic. Can't wait to see if Drive Image 4 will work next. I'm going to address getting XP's repair install to work by wiping C clean & FDISK it. Do a new install of XP on C. If that does't work, I'll See what Maxtor has to say. If anything worthwhile comes out of it I'll start a new post.

Since I have recovered everything worthwhile off of the old C drive, I'll be reformatting it next.

And, to everyone's relief I'm sure, this shoud be the end of this post.

Many, many thanks to all, especially Train, Reboot, Rockster2U and BillyBob, this board is the greatest.