Weird FDISK problem.. Any Ideas?

[KvHagedorn]

I was trying to re-set up my hard drive and got a strange error. I booted from my win98 startup floppy, and when I went to FDISK, I got a strange message: "error reading from fixed disk". Seagate sent me a utility to test the disk, and it tests OK. ScanDisk indicates no problems. I set it up originally with three partitions, a primary DOS partition (C drive-12GB), and two logical drives within an extended partition (D drive-4GB and E drive-1.3GB). E drive was never recognized. And now when i go to FDISK, it gives me "error reading from fixed disk"

It is an 18GB U2W SCA Seagate Cheetah running on an Adaptec 7896 controller through an Asus SCA backplane which is properly connected and actively terminated.

Any ideas any of you might have would be very much appreciated.

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Kind Regards,

KvH

[SteveC]

I have no idea, but have you tried Partition Magic?

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[KvHagedorn]

Nope, never tried PM.. would it let me wipe it clean and start over?

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Kind Regards,

KvH

[Wombat]

Was it always a Win9x machine? fdisk is often crippled, and doesn't see other types of partitions.
Sometimes, viral activity can cause what you see.

[KvHagedorn]

It's a brand new everything. Couldn't be a virus.

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Kind Regards,

KvH

[SteveC]

Try Partition Magic (bound to be on some warez sites ) - this will let you do anything, resize partitions without losing data, delete, create, partitions, convert fom one file system to another. It's an amazing piece of software! (And no, I'm not a sales guy for whoever makes PM!)

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Cheers,
Steve

PS: Some or all of the above message may be wrong, or, just as likely, correct. Depends on what mood I'm in. And what you know. ;¬)

[merchant2112]

i i had a problem with a partition once, i thought it was a bad drive (i wasn't)it was partitioned as a nt drive at some time in its life. had a dos partition and logical (nt partitions) fdisk would see the dos partition but would not delete the nt ones (or see them) diskmanager from manufature would see the nt partitons but would not delete them.

a utility i got from one ot the tech boys fixed things right up. it was called delpar short for delte partition. it set the drive straight and allowed the normal win98 fdisk to work.

i have no idea where he got it from but he did download it off the net, do a search for partitioning tools or see if that segate tool will let you lowlevel format/ delete all partitions on the drive.

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rags, UPS ground sucks too. (i know i used to work for the slave driveing bastards)

[This message has been edited by merchant2112 (edited 09-27-1999).]

[KvHagedorn]

Well, thanks to all for your help.. found a utility in my SCSI bios to do a low level format and did that.. got me back to where I was before.. can get into fdisk again. Lets see if it works right now...

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Kind Regards,

KvH

[Jorden]

KvH: Do know that Win98 doesn't support any disks or partitions higher than 8.5Gb
Not even SCSI partitions/drives.

To not get the fault again, or your HDD crashing partition one large partition to max 8.5Gb and divide the rest... That way your E:-drive will be recognized as well.

(Do check though that your CD-ROM drive isn't set firmly at E: )

Jorden, having had the same problem.

[paul]

Did you try w98 boot floppy without all the diag crap? (format a:/s)

Copy fdisk to it and boot

WHen you originally fdisk'd the drive, You defined all three partitions and fdisk saw them at that time? It checks as it goes

[Technoid]

Funny...
Win98 dosent have any problems with my Quantum 13GB drive!
I think that you have confused yourself with 95B and higher that have this limitation!

[Jorden]

I might've been confused with the SCSI drives but not the IDE drives. Checked it at several computer-companies and they all advice me to use partitions or my HDD would be eaten alive one day...

Win98SE I don't know about, but Win95B and C and Win98 have these problems. Perhaps it's the mobo or HDD you have that is that good that Win98 doesn't mind.

Jorden.

[Wombat]

I've heard the 8Gb limit before, and I'm inclined to believe it. Windows uses a 32-bit FAT architecture, and defaults to a 2k sector size. 2k * 2^32 = roughly 8.5Gigs. I do believe that it allows larger sectors, however. Be advised that other sector sizes are non-standard, and have to be set up carefully during the partitioning and formatting.
All in all, I'd rather just multi-partition.

-Wombat

[agallag]

I can't remember if it was introduced in Win98 or Win98se, but drives over 8GB use FAT32X, not FAT32. I haven't read anything about this though, just saw it specified that way in Partition Magic 4.01 after I got my quantum 12.7GB. Partition magic 3 can't handle FAT32X, even though it supports FAT32.

[agallag]

Cut this from the microsoft knowledge base...

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This behavior can occur if the hard disk controller does not fully support the interrupt 13 extensions. This information applies to both IDE and SCSI hard disk drives.

In order for a hard disk that is larger than 8 GB and uses the FAT32 file system to be fully addressed, it must support interrupt 13 extensions. Io.sys tests for the presence of interrupt 13 extensions. If interrupt 13 extensions are not detected, the default CHS LBA limit of 7.9 GB is used.