Help- Hardrive spinning, but no C:\

[island911]

My notebook (work cmptr) has a drive that has "no partition" . . ."cant find drive C: . . .. (had been working for ~ a year)

I have a back-up drive I've been using (and most all of the files backed up.) However, I would like to recover this drive, as it was. Any suggestions?

I've tried Booting from the XP disk; I'm able to run the "fixmbr" "successfully" . . .but that changes nothing.

Running "fixboot" does nothing either.

The drive is recognized by the BIOS as the proper size...

[BlueSkyJaunte]

What brand/model? There may be notifications out on the web about things like this.

[island911]

Dell inspiron 8200 .. ..from a few years back (big black brick of a machine)

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I don't know of anything but google turned up the Dell forums:

http://delltalk.us.dell.com/supportforums/board?board.id=insp_harddrive

[id10t]

Sounds like your partition table got hosed. A boot-cd based tool like norton system works (or perhaps a small CD based Linux distribution) could fix it.

Edit - Partion Magic woudl probably be able to fix it as well

[island911]

Thanks, I pulled norton system works off the shelf.
Unfortunately, In its auto-run mode it just does a quick scan for viruses, apparently (no partion fixing tools that I can see)

Interestingly though, the result of the (quick) scan:

memory - scanned & clear

Mstr boot rec- 1 & 0

boot rec - 0 & 0

Files - 0 & 0


. . .so yeah, I think you're right; the partition table got hosed.

I'll go looking for Partion Magic.

Thanks.

[BlueSkyJaunte]

So this was just spontaneous? Makes me even gladder I spent the time installing Gentoo last weekend....

[island911]

Yeah, spontaneous. . . .it froze . . blue screen-o'death

At least I know enough not to put all my eggs in one quazi-stable basket. . . but there are a few eggs I would like to save, if reasonably possible.

Oh, and thanks, blue, for the Dell link. I've used it in the past, but seems more questions there, than answers . . ..all the smart guys (and gals) drive Porsches, doncha know.

[john70t]

It boots up o.k. (bios, physical HD and OS are o.k.) but can't access the info on the rest of the drive?
No expert by any means, but it sounds like someting(software) wiped the partitions/registry. Is there an updated bios from the Dell site? Do they have any free registry fix utilities, or do they have a "you buy you leave" policy like Sears?

CDs are cheap by the pack, and if you keep only shortcuts to your files on the desktop which are stored on the hard drive (instead of within the Windows enviroment), the system runs faster and Windows can be reinstalled multiple times(sometimes necessary ) without losing any stored data.

[island911]

Originally posted by john70t
It boots up o.k. (bios, physical HD and OS are o.k.) but can't access the info on the rest of the drive?. . .

No, BIOS is good, recognizes hard-drive size & type, and then nothing.

Because this is my work cmptr, it never goes "online" . . .as cheap (and I mean cheap in all its definitions) as cmptrs and software are, there is just no reason not to have dedicated boxes.
Anyway, exceeding low chance of a virus. . . unless it came with off-the-shelf software (in which case I believe the problem would be considered a "feature")

[BlueSkyJaunte]

I've heard of this new virus called "Windows"...seems people keep installing it all on their own!

[rickeolis]

Do you have the original factory setup CD's? I'd try them from boot.

Also, there are some bootable diagnostic programs out there that tells you the condition of system devices like memory and hard drives, do know of any?

Also, try an old DOS 6.22 boot disk to see what FDISK says about the drive???

[fintstone]

Hey...the drive on my 8200 did the same. Ended up being a bad drive. Seems the hitachi/IBM travelstar portable drives in the 8000 series all fail at about the 1 year mark...usually about one week after their warranty ends. Most get noisy first..guess that is a warning sign. Since Dell installs it, IBM Hitachi does not honor their usual warranty...and Dell's warranty period is only a year. Wish I had backed up my work better. I got a bigger/faster (supposedly improved) Travelstar....(just plugged right in) new off EBay. It is a 60 GB, 7200 RPM, 8 MB Buffer Hard Drive. It cost $289, but came with a 3yr warranty.

[cegerer]

Is this plugged into the same circuit as the dishwasher?

[84porsche]

It obviously seems like a hard drive problem because you can at least get to the Bios. If you know anybody that has another Dell Inspiron 8200, try their hard drive in your laptop and if it boots - you'll know for sure. Another suggestion is get it to boot from a USB hard drive.

I unfortunately deep fried my motherboard 1 month out of warranty, so my 8200 sits until a reasonable solution appears.

[island911]

Originally posted by cegerer
Is this plugged into the same circuit as the dishwasher?

LOL . . .(damn electronics. )

We both know that Mechanical solutions are far superior.

fintstone - thanks .. and yeah its a Hitachi. though still spins-up. . .it just became unstable. I'm glad I had a spare drive.

I have yet to try the Partition Magic . ..I'll update if it works.

[beepbeep]

Connect it to another computer as a slave. Try to copy/save as many files as you can. If you cannot salvage anything, make a decision if it's worth it to send it to data-recovery firm (500$ and upwards).

After that, do a low-level format and check out the disc with Hitachi's own software to see if surface is defective. If it is, send it back to Hitachi and you will recieve a new one (in case itäs still under it's 3-year warranty). If not, do a NTFS format and install Windows all over again.

BlueSkyJaunte: It's a probably mechanical, non-OS problem

[fintstone]

The warranty is by serial number...Dell saves bucks when they buy the drives by not buying the warranty..so IBM/hitachi will not honor those with serial numbers that they sold to Dell...I tried. You must go through Dell who only offers a year warranty unless you purchased a maint. agreement. You probably will not be able to copy any files, because the machine will not recognize the formatting. If it starts working briefly...copy any files you want them immediately because eventually it will stop altogether. Good luck.

[Icemaster]

If all else fails, I MAY be able to recover it for you. No promises, but I've got an OnTrack tool that I use when my engineers get a little jumpy and do stupid things like FDSIK hard drives before ghosting the machine.

Have you pulled the hard drive? Shoot me the model number and I'll see if I've got an external cable that fits it.

No promises....

[beepbeep]

In EU countries, each HD-manufacturer must provide three year end-user warranty for it's harddrives. It effectivly means that i can buy second.hand computer from a third person and if HD craps out i can send it to IBM/Hitachi/Seagate/whatever and get a new one as long as it's less than three years old.

If you plan to send it to data-recovery companies, don't try any DIY repair. Chances are you'll just make it worse...