Fdisk Error - Hard Drive Not Detected

Hi,

I have a HP Pavilion 8772C and I've previously partitioned my hard drive into drive c and drive d. Since the computer was down, I tried fdisk my c drive by choosing "Fdisk using NTFS partition" option, the system starts formatting, but pops up an error screen midway through (a Windows XP error screen). Now when I try to start the computer, I received the following message: "Operating system missing". When I try fdisk it using an ms dos boot disk, it gives me this message, "No fixed disk found". The system can't boot up from cd anymore, because the hard drive is not detected.

I've tried to use the Maxtor PowerMax tool to write zeros to the rest of my hard drive but it returns me an error message. I think my problem is that part of the drive (drive c is fdisk as NTFS while the other part (drive d is still in FAT format.
Is there a way for the system to detect my hard drive and thus fix the problem?

I have a Maxtor ATA hard Drive Model #: 94610U6. I don't know too much about dos-based programs and hardware, so please explain for me, thank you!

Hey m8,
Have you tried deleting the partitions and re-making 1 partition out of the whole drive. Does your BIOS see the HDD, these two steps can determine weather or not your system is seeing the HDD, or not, If so, In all likelyhood, the HDD is faulty.

Try them out and report back!

Nic Italiano

My BIOS sees the HD as Maxtor Altair but when I attempt to fdisk it, the dos returns me with "No fixed disk found", as though the hard drive is not present. I've tried using the Ultimate Boot Disk and it still says the hard drive is not present. But the BIOS detects it though, how do I know if the hard drive is spinning?

OK, try making a new MS-DOS boot disk, may be a faulty file or driver, and try another IDE or ATA cable, whatever your using

I would try booting it with a set up XP or 2K boot disks. If the front of the drive is NTFS and that is causing the issue which I'm told will sometimes give you issues in DOS. ( depending on the ver) If it allows you to boot with the 2K boot disks you can fdisk and format from there. Then of course you would have the option of creating a FAT 32 logical partition. After doing that I would format the mbr and then reinstall. If this doesn't work I would try to find a scrubbing disk. They're not easy to find but it scrubs the drive completley from floppy. When you restart with you're 98 boot you should be able to fdisk from there and try to install again.
If neither of these work find a window and chuck the HDD out it remember to open the window of course..

hi,
i would try using maxblast to detect and write zeros to the drive . i recently installed a large drive on an older system that the bios would not recognize but the maxblast did .
hope this helps,
terry

Sometimes by accident or mostly system configuration change, the disk geometry is supposed to be changed. As a result of it, some OS or even bios would not recognize the drive.

That is why, you cannot help relying upon other OS like Linux or FreeDos etc. Powermax or Maxblast would use Cardera Dos. Then you need to try other Dos or Dos versions. Consult bootdisk.com

Changing connections and jumper settings may improve the situation also.