Missing Hard Drive

[CSULB71]

On my daughter's PC, Windows 98SE no longer shows the second HDD under "My Computer". It’s listed during boot-up POST, and “Device Manager” says it’s there and working properly, but under “Properties/ Settings” there is no drive letter assigned. I physically disconnected the HDD and rebooted then reconnected it, but no go. The “Add New Hardware” routine didn’t work either. Is there a particular Windows file that is corrupt, or do I need to reinstall Windows, or is something else wrong?

[normcar]

Try another HD cable. Use a different power connection, or try to unplug some of your other devices to see if maybe your PSU is overtaxed, and the HD isn't getting enough juice. Also try it on the cable with your boot drive. Your connector on the MB may be bad. Also try uninstalling/installing/updating the driver. If nothing works on your computer, try it on another computer to see if it is a bad drive. You may also have to use a utility from the manufacture to test it from a bootable floppy to see if there are problems with the HD. I just did that last night for a Seagate drive 500GB I just purchased. During a couple of startups, the BIOS returned the message that the HD had a problem, and it should be backed-up and replaced. Seagate's utility boots with a dos program to run diagonistics against the HD. I'm sure all the HD manufactures have the same type of utility. If this utility sees it, and you can't get win98 to see it after trying many different things, then you may have to reinstall it. If you havn't reloaded win98 in months/years, you may have to do it now.

Also did you add any other programs/devices lately? If so you can try unloading them.

[ozymango]

Could be bad news time -- if it shows up in the device manager but the system doesn't recognize it as an operational drive, most likely the FAT is corrupted (at least) and whatever data is on that drive is "lost." I put lost in quotes because you can usually recover a drive that runs enough to come up as a system device, but it does take software, time, and luck.

In any case, you should be able to verify this or not by booting in DOS mode (or run a DOS window in 98, though I think you may have to boot to DOS for this to work right), and run "fdisk.exe" -- this'll show what the OS thinks your disc is. If it has valid partitions and file structure, it'll list what kind of file structure (FAT 16 or 32) the disc has, or it may just say "unknown disc" or something like that, I never remember my syntax.

But if there's stuff you need to save from that drive, or stuff you'd at least like to try to save, my first advice is to remove the drive NOW, keep it safe and dry and comfy, and we can advice on how to recover data depending on your skills and interests in doing it yourself, or having somebody else to it for you.

[LOWTECH]

I had a simular problem I took out HD lead completly and then reconected it again, it then showed up on startup and worked OK.
It`s worth trying it costs nothing..........also try swapping HD leads over. if first boot drive still works ok, then it`s not the HD lead.

[dun4cheap]

Does the drive show up in the device manager? If so, click on it and assign a drive letter to it from their.

[tdan]

I have seen boot sector viruses make hard drives and CD-Rom drives fail to appear under Windows95/98.

Dan

[INFRATOM]

It is also possible that drive letter is duplicated if she is using USB external drives or ipod better disconnect and reboot see it comes back, I don't remember in win98 but in xp you can right click on my computer and left on manage then go to disk manager and see if it shows and change the drive letters. if not maybe partition table is corrupted ther are some fdisk utility that repairs partition table but is dangerous. You may have to fdisk and reformat the drive if nothing worth "much" on it. This was assumed no one touched the inside or put in new drives in that case you have to check all the cables and master/slave settings.

[normcar]

If you have data you want to keep. Do NOT format the disk. There are data recovery programs that will easily recover the data assuming the HD does not have a physical problem. Formatting the disk is not an option, if you have data to recover.

[CSULB71]

Thanks, all, for the various suggestions. But, as I mentioned before...
1. The system recognizes the second HDD during boot-up POST, and the boot drive is on the same IDE cable (doesn’t that rule out a bad IDE cable/connection or power connection?).
2. Device Manager shows it, but no drive letter is assigned, and the box where that can be added/changed is grayed out (can’t manually add drive letter).

New info: BIOS also shows it, with what looks to be the right info (Mfg’r.ID, # of megabytes, #heads, #cylinders, etc.). No external USB “drives” are connected, so there's no drive letter duplication. Wireless DSL modem stuff was added (not by me) a couple of months ago using USB connections, but how would that be a cause??
It’s been about two years since Win 98 was last installed, so I’m still leaning towards something corrupt in Windows. But, before I decide to reload Windows, does anybody know which file(s) control HDD recognition?

[dun4cheap]

In the autoexec.bat make sure that the set last drive is like at Z:. Also, just after the system posts, press F8 and select command prompt. See if you can access the drive from a dos prompt without windows.

[normcar]

You could still have a bad HD cable. I would try to replace it first. Do the simple things like replacing cables, trying different power connectors, or taking out other components first.

I have a similar problem. I replaced a 80GB HD with a new 350GB HD, and my computer failed to boot. The replaced HD is not my bootable drive. I have a DVD writer and DVD reader, and 8 HDs in this computer. So I unhooked all power connections except the boot drive, then started adding back drives one at a time. I ran out of time last night, but I now have 6 of 8 HDs connected ok. The other 2 HDs are connected to the same cable. Tonight I will replace the cable, and begin assessing the problem again. You have to start simple, and progress to the more difficult and time consuming things like reloading the OS.

[CSULB71]

In the autoexec.bat make sure that the set last drive is like at Z:.

I'll check that next time I'm at her house. But, I just checked my PC's autoexec.bat file (also Win 98 SE), and I don't have any entry there -- never have that I recall, and I have two HDD's which function perfectly.

You could still have a bad HD cable...

It's possible, so I'll try a spare cable I have to see what happens. If that doesn't help, I'll try your other suggestions.

[Nelson37]

Seperate the two drives, both cable and IDE mobo connector. Disconnect CD if necessary. You could also try the fdisk /mbr command, and/or fdisk by itself to see if any partitions are detected on the drive.

SFAIK, win98 does not detect Drives, it detects Partitions. It is apparently not seeing any on your drive. Multiple possible reasons, the steps I have outlined above eliminate most of them and are non-destructive.

[TBoneit]

Nelson37 as I recasll it the drive should still show up in the device manager. I seem to remember more than once going there in Win98 to ensure that the drive was set to DMA mode. Not sitting at a win98 right now.

OTOH there is no Computer management application like Win2K or WinXp have.

I have to agree that most likely the partition table is blown/corrupted. Most likely proper data recovery s/w could get things back with luck.

[Nelson37]

It does show up, just no drive letter.

[ahhaa]

beyond showing up (do you mean an icon?), can you access the data on it? is is set as a Cable Select drive?

[CSULB71]

The HDD "shows up" in Device Manager, but since no drive letter is assigned (and can't be entered manually, either), there's no icon for it in the Control Panel -- therefore I can't access it from Windows. The HDD is set to "Slave"; it was working fine a few months ago, then it went into hiding. The first thing I'm going to try the next time I'm over at her house is to see if the HDD is accessable via DOS before Windows loads. If not, then I'll try another IDE cable/separate the two HDD's and see what I get. BTW, if I do put the 2 HDD's on separate IDE cables, do I set them both to "master"? Thanks for the additional suggestions.

[ahhaa]

Device Manager may be 'remembering' it, as opposed to seeing it. Does that drive have a cache?

On the cables thing, the drive with the OS has to be master, and on the end of the EIDE cable in IDE1. The 2nd HD drive can be anywhere, there's a slightly complicated logic involving the throughput if there are 2 CD drives also- common practice is to put the main (burner) CD/DVD on IDE2 master, and the 2nd HD as slave on IDE2; tho many do it differently also.

Would help to know the circumstances of the failure- if something was installed or there was a hardware change just prior to the disappearance. Your best check is putting the drive on an XP machine, it has diagnostic tools, or you can use the WD/Seagate HD downloads... but you did check the power connector too? :]

one last thought- you can download Puppy or Knoppix as LiveCDs (they don't use a HD, run from CD into RAM) and use tools like MUT to look at the HD 'outside' of Windows. If you see her files you can copy them onto a CD or into other Windows partitions.

I'd recommend Puppy because its only a 60 meg download, but Knoppix is cool too. Lots of people are doing this lately, using Linux to repair Windows. They are also using Puppy to rejuvenate older machines & even running the OS from a flash drive, so any computer is 'your' computer... end of unsolicited plug!:]
http://www.puppyos.com/download/downpage.htm
http://distrowatch.com/

[TooLFooL]

if its set to slave, be sure the other is set to master, and not cable select. you must use either cable select on all drives, or master/slave on all drives, not mixed.

[Nelson37]

Some drives Jumper setting for Master and Single is the same, some drives it is different. If different, one drive set to Master will not work without a Slave present.

Mixing drives on cable - this is a crapshoot. Will usually work,occassionally a minor performance hit, on rare occassions a MAJOR decrease in performance. I have watched database queries go from 3-5 seconds to over a minute simply by connecting an empty Slave drive, disconnect and performance returns. Same age and type of drive, different manufacturers. Never mix optical and hard drives, this will almost always give decreased performance.

Boot OS drive does NOT have to be Master. Master/Slave is independent of letter designation or boot sequence, as long as this is BIOS or OS definable.

One working drive does not rule out cable issue. Secondary connector could be bad, a single pinched or holed wire could affect only one drive. Using a new cable on an independent channel rules out these possibilities. Sure these are rare, so is the drive failing in the first place. The power connector could also have failed, try a different one.

Have any partition management softwares been run? Any drive managers of ANY kind? I mean BEFORE the failure. Almost certain SOMETHING was applied to or happened to this drive. Power surge, virus, many possibilities. What is happening is that windows does not see a usable partition on the drive. Fdisk /MBR as I mentioned earlier often solves such issues.

[CSULB71]

Device Manager may be 'remembering' it, as opposed to seeing it. Does that drive have a cache?

I don't know. I did disconnect the IDE and power connections, rebooted, and it was gone from Device Manager. Reconnected, rebooted, and it was "back" again in DM.

Have any partition management softwares been run? Any drive managers of ANY kind?

No, there weren't.

[tdan]

The original poster did not indicate if a virus scan was done.
As I mentioned above, with some boot sector viruses, everything will seem fine from the
perspective of the hardware/BIOS, but windows will misreport what drives are attached.

[ahhaa]

CS- you sure got a good bunch of options here; do be sure to let us know what it turns out to be...

[CSULB71]

No, a virus scan (like Norton AntiVirus?) has not been done. But, come to think of it, how can I if Windows doesn't see the HDD?
Yes, now that I'm armed with so many good suggestions, the next time I'm at her PC, it should only take 5 minutes to solve.
I'll report back when I get some results. Thanks again.

[ahhaa]

If you have hispeed at your place, mebbe download AVG or a current trial version of Norton, etc; Adaware, Spybot, and stick'em on a CD to take with you...

[creakndale]

I had a similar problem with WinXP Pro at work where a USB thumb drive did not have a drive letter assigned to it upon installation. Disk Management utility saw it (just as it "sees" your hard disk) but no drive letter or a way of assigning it one. Computer support personnel tried many things over many days and couldn't understand why this was happening. They reloaded the operating sustem and it still wouldn't give the USB thumb drive a letter. Eventually they talked to someone who knew the answer. In my case one of the network mapped drives had been assigned a drive letter too close to the early drive letters. Remapping the network drive to a drive letter further down in the alphabet solved the problem.

Speculation: It might be that when your USB Wireless DSL modem was added that it assigned it a drive letter too close to the beginning of the alphabet. Typically...
1st hard drive is C:
2nd hard drive is D:
A CD or DVD drive is E:
then the USB Wireless DSL modem is F:

I would look at the USB Wireless DSL modem and see what drive letter it's been assigned. Possibly move it further down the alphabet, force it to something like H: and then reboot.

[CSULB71]

Just got back from my latest (last?) attempt at my daughter's PC. With FDISK I was able to set the partition OK, it reported the drive capacity OK, but after restarting I couldn't format it because still no drive letter assigned. The instructions I had for the FORMAT were to type (at the DOS A:\ prompt) FORMAT D:\U -- is that right? It kept saying "missing parameter" or something like that. Is it a dead HDD, or is the MBR messed up, and is there a fix for that? One last try.......

[Nelson37]

The correct command would be format d: /u. That would be a "d", a colon, a space (that is what you are missing), then a Forward Slash (top leans to the right), then a U, for unconditional. I never use the U on an HD format as I want to see the parameters it displays and have the opportunity to cancel. Be aware that once you press ENTER, the drive is effectively empty (other than sector-based drive recovery).

I would try the FDISK /MBR command, to rebuild the Master Boot Record. This is non-destructive, unless non-standard partitioning software has been used.

You said you SET the partition. Do you mean that there was NO existing partition displayed in FDISK? That pretty much means the drive is empty. IF the new partition has EXACTLY the same parameters, it is possible recreating it would leave accessible data.

Just a trick for you. On some systems, it is possible for the Windows displayed drive order to be different from what you would see at a DOS prompt. IOW, "C:" under windows could be "D:" under DOS. Before formatting, completely disconnect the boot HD (while power is off) and use the same cable and power to connect the suspect drive. Test boot to be certain the currently connected drive is NOT the boot disk. Formatting the boot drive would be a bad thing.

This will double as a security to format the correct drive and also to test the connection and controller to the suspect drive as being the problem. You will notice I recommended that previously. Don't forget to change the jumper, and the command will now be "format c:".

[ahhaa]

am getting lost on what you are trying to do- thought you were trying to save the data?

here is a clear statement of the normal FDISK (not FORMAT) process:
To create a logical drive (that is a drive visible to Windows and represented with a drive letter such as C: or D, simply fill in the amount of space you require the drive to have. If you do not use all the available space, FDISK will prompt you to create a second logical drive, and so on, until all the space in the extended DOS partition you created previously has been accounted for. FDISK will assign drive letters sequentially from the first available. There is no way to alter this in Windows 9x/ME.

more at :
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1778&page=12
http://www.computerhope.com/fdiskhlp.htm

[CSULB71]

The correct command would be format d: /u. That would be a "d", a colon, a space (that is what you are missing), then a Forward Slash (top leans to the right)...
You said you SET the partition. Do you mean that there was NO existing partition displayed in FDISK?

Sorry about the back slash, I think I may have used that instead of the forward slash, and that's one reason it didn't work. I did try the space and the no space, but neither worked.
The partition was already there during the FDISK steps from my previous go-around, but I re-did it again to be sure. However, shouldn't I have seen somewhere, while still in DOS, that the drive was assigned letter "D"? There was nothing that I saw like that (DOS just referred to it as Drive #2), so would the Format step have worked even if I'd typed it in correctly?

Sorry, it has been so long since my original post, but no, there is no longer any data to worry about since I deleted the original two partitions that were on there when I first re-did the FDISK operation. And today (as it did before when I made the previous attempts), it did ask me what size I wanted to make the partion, and I just clicked on the 19,xxx MB's (20 GB HDD) it displayed as available = one partition.

And how do I do the FDISK /MBR command -- is it a file? It's not on my WIN98SE startup floppy.