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Windows Forum / Windows 98 / Disks / File System / May 2008Why did reformatted C: and reinstalling Win98SE corrupt 2nd hard d
I have a desktop computer running Win98SE. A month ago, a bug developed and my IE and MSN Messenger web browser app kept crashing. I copied over contents of My Documents to my second Maxtor internal hard drive (D:) which is connected to an IDE board in my computer. I reformatted my primary hard drive C: and reinstalled win98SE on it. My computer recognizes the former D drive but when I try to read it I get a message that says D:\ is not accessible. A device connected to the system is not ready. Whenever I go to empty the Recycle Bin, I get a dialog box that says the D: drive is not formatted; do you wish to format to which I say no. All my controllers and drives are shown in the hardware manager, no yellow and black ballbats, and messages that devices are functionaing properly. Running fdisk at a DOS prompt and looking at the D: drive, I get:\ Partition 1 Status=A Non-DOS 39072 Mbytes Usage 100% Partition 2 Pri DOS 8 Mbytes UNKNOWN Can my data be retrieved off of it? Why would formatting the C: drive corrupt the D: drive? Did I delete something off of the D: drive before this problem occured which was sitting in the Recycle Bin that when I formatted the C: drive, a dangling link was left somewhere? Would it be worth it to try and take this drive out of my computer and try to read the data in another computer? What about bypassing the IDE controller board on my computer and connecting directly to the motherboard replacing my DVD or CD-RW drive connection? Thank you. doug_gaming@yahoo.com One possible explanation is that your boot drive (C) had previously been set up with a partition manager, and the partitioning of the second drive was configured with that partition manager running. When you rebuilt the boot drive the partition manager was not installed. So now the partitioning of the second drive is not recognizable. The system sees the disk as a device, but cannot assign a drive letter because it can't see any partitions that it recognises. For this to be possible, you must have done more than re-formatting the boot drive - you must have also SYSed it and re-partitioned it. This would happen if you booted from floppy to re-install Windows, as the system would see an 'unpartitioned' drive, and would partition and SYS it for you, removing the partition manager. If this is a possibility, then a solution is to re-install the partition manager. This should not require re-partitioning of the boot (C) drive - the partition manager should be able to handle a standard boot drive and a specially-partitioned second drive, to give you access to your files.  SignatureJeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) >I have a desktop computer running Win98SE. A month ago, a bug developed >and [quoted text clipped - 28 lines] > CD-RW > drive connection? Thank you. doug_gaming@yahoo.com Jeff, It actually assigns the drive letter D: with My Computer; just when you click on it, it says Device is not accessible. A device connected to it is not functioning properly. I have Partition Magic which I used on my laptop in an attempt to install Linux but I don't think I tried this with this Desktop computer as it was running Win98SE. Any further ideas. Doug > One possible explanation is that your boot drive (C) had previously been set > up with a partition manager, and the partitioning of the second drive was [quoted text clipped - 46 lines] > > CD-RW > > drive connection? Thank you. doug_gaming@yahoo.com Do you know whether or not the partition manager was installed on the original boot drive before you re-built it? Seeing some sort of partition on that second drive is enough to get Windows to assign a drive letter, but when it can't recognise the formatting (or, more likely, when it tries to decode the exact partition format) then you get the device not accessible message. You partition manager may have been something like EZ-Drive or MaxBlast. It's also known as a drive overlay or drive manager. You would know you had it if there was a brief message each time you started, indicating the key to press to do a floppy boot. SignatureJeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) > Jeff, > It actually assigns the drive letter D: with My Computer; just when you [quoted text clipped - 74 lines] >> > CD-RW >> > drive connection? Thank you. doug_gaming@yahoo.com > I have a desktop computer running Win98SE. A month ago, a bug developed and > my IE and MSN Messenger web browser app kept crashing. I copied over [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > computer and connecting directly to the motherboard replacing my DVD or CD-RW > drive connection? Thank you. doug_gaming@yahoo.com Does your controller card require drivers not found in Windows? Check device manager. If there is a yellow exclaimation...the drivers will be needed. You may want to try putting the drive in place of your DVD or CD Phil, Thanks, the hard drive shows up under hard drive and the controllers (Primary IDE controller dual fifo) and Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller both show up under hard drive controllers. None have a ballbat on them. Doug > > I have a desktop computer running Win98SE. A month ago, a bug developed > and [quoted text clipped - 34 lines] > > You may want to try putting the drive in place of your DVD or CD > Phil, > Thanks, the hard drive shows up under hard drive and the controllers > (Primary IDE controller dual fifo) and Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller both > show up under hard drive controllers. None have a ballbat on them. > Doug Google for data recovery software That is bad advice because it creates a risk of damaging that backup data. Reinstalling the overlay is not only by far the most likely fix for the problem, it involves making NO changes to the back up disk. SignatureJeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) > >> Phil, [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > > Google for data recovery software > That is bad advice because it creates a risk of damaging that backup data. > > Reinstalling the overlay is not only by far the most likely fix for the > problem, it involves making NO changes to the back up disk. I did not see any mention from the OP that he had drive overlay installed originally. I looked at *all* his responses and did not see such. Since my news server is flakey at times... could you kindly cut and past his mention of the overlay...as it sure did not come through at my end. Thank you! If the OP had an overlay when the second drive was added. then the overlay removed...I think that is a very likley reason for the problem... However , formatting a drive and reinstalling the OS would not have removed the overlay. EZ-BIOS or EZ-drive are not terribly easy to remove unless one uses the utility that was originally use to install them. ..so removal of such would have had to been done intentionally. OTOH: Running data recovery software in the read-only mode will not damage existent data on a 2nd drive. don't know where you pulled that one from? Installing data recovery software on a partition where lost data resides is *of course* a dangerous operation...as the data could certainly be over-written...but the OP would be trying to read the non-system drive... so installing data recovery software on the system drive would do nothing to a 2nd drive that is unreadable. Believe me...I do a lot of data recovery work and have been successful in performing recoveries in most instances. Drives that are not recognized by the bios are generally hopeless of course. The OP is not aware of the installation of the drive overlay because it was done so long ago and has been invisible since then, except perhaps for a small message at startup about booting from floppy. If he knew about it he wouldn't need to ask for help here. You don't need that confirmation from the OP to know that is the problem - you only need to look properly at the description provided - a system that was working OK, a rebuild of the boot drive and now a secondary drive with one large (apparently) unpartitioned area and a small unformatted DOS partition. It is an exact description of a missing overlay. Any work to recover files from that drive that does not involve reinstating the overlay is going to be dangerous. A typical scenario is that about 80% of the files look recoverable, which may tempt OP into doing the recover, when the data would be 100% recoverable with the simple installation of the overlay. However I have also seen conditions where 100% of the files are reported as recoverable because the track layout happened to match the FAT size, but of course when the recovery is attempted only about 80% are actually intact. OP has just re-built the boot drive. Therefore, once the data is recovered he can simply rebuild it again to get rid of the overlay. The drive IS recognised by the BIOS, as originally stated "My computer recognizes the former D drive...". Formatting the drive would not have removed the overlay, but booting from another device and running Windows setup would - OP has not stated exactly how he installed Windows. I strongly recommend that you connect directly to the MS server to avoid missing parts of conversations due to a flaky server. SignatureJeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) > >> That is bad advice because it creates a risk of damaging that backup [quoted text clipped - 45 lines] > Drives that are not recognized by the bios are generally hopeless of > course. > The OP is not aware of the installation of the drive overlay because it was > done so long ago and has been invisible since then, except perhaps for a [quoted text clipped - 27 lines] > I strongly recommend that you connect directly to the MS server to avoid > missing parts of conversations due to a flaky server. You have some very good insights and I agree that the problem the OP has *could* be due to an overlay...but there is no where he states that the drive had one. If you are still around Doug, this could be settled by just looking at the message on the screen as the machine boots up. It will say something like EZ Bios.. then specify which key to hit to boot from floppy (I forgot the exact wording.) If the machine has that message now... or if it had such a message before and no longer has it...then indeed it looks like an overlay problem. Again, there is no definite evidence of such an overlay... and there are other reasons why the second drive is unreadable. It could be something as simple as a loose IDE cable. The OP might have run fdisk and deleted the drive, then recreated it in error and not formatted it. etc As far as data recovery goes...I cited the case of a non-detected drive merely as a hopeless scenario... which this is not. Also as I said earlier...data recovery operations do not destroy data which are on a drive... it's more a matter of whether the data are recovered or not. Again...the existence of a drive overlay was never answered by the OP when you had asked that question. BTW: As flakey as my own news-server may be at times... I can see more messages on it than if I use the Microsoft server directly. I have no clue as to why...so I often use whichever seems to be working best at the time. > snip < > [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > or if it had such a message before and no longer has it...then indeed it > looks like an overlay problem. IT WON'T BE THERE. The problem is that the overlay is NOT being invoked at boot time, so the partition is not recognised as valid. > Again, there is no definite evidence of such an overlay... There is ample evidence - the partition was accessible, now it's not, although the space is still allocated to it. > and there are other reasons why the second drive is unreadable. > It could be something as simple as a loose IDE cable. The second drive is readble. FDISK reported the partitioning. > The OP might have run fdisk and deleted the drive, then recreated it in > error and not formatted it. etc I think OP would have remembered FDISKing his backup data and having to re-create a partition. > As far as data recovery goes...I cited the case of a non-detected drive > merely as a hopeless scenario... > which this is not. Also as I said earlier...data recovery operations do > not destroy data which are on a drive... > it's more a matter of whether the data are recovered or not. Earlier? Only after I prompted you with a warning about how dangerous this is. Your first comment was "Google for data recovery software", and that carries a major risk that OP will think that data recovery software is needed and should be used, thus risking a large portion of his data. If you really meant "Run some data recovery software to examine that partition without attempting to recover any of the files but just to see what's there" I would not have commented, even though I think it's a waste of time. > Again...the existence of a drive overlay was never answered by the OP > when you had asked that question. I'll say it again - if he knew this was the problem he had no need to post his question. > BTW: As flakey as my own news-server may be at times... > I can see more messages on it than if I use the Microsoft server directly. > I have no clue as to why...so I often use whichever seems to be working > best > at the time. Then you should be framing your replies on the basis that you do not have the whole picture. SignatureJeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) > > snip < > > [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > IT WON'T BE THERE. The problem is that the overlay is NOT being invoked at > boot time, so the partition is not recognized as valid. As I stated before...EZ bios is not easy to wipe out, it will not be wiped out by a format. It will not even be wiped out by a fdisk /mbr I have tried it. I suggest you find a spare harddrive and give it a test if you don't believe me. EZ BIOS needs to be unininstalled by the utility that installed it in the first place. (though IIRC there are several different overlays and one setup program can remove an overlay created by the other.) I cannot imagine that the OP could have forgotten uninstalling the overlay. He seems to have done the reinstall just a few weeks ago... he certainly did not mention such when you asked him. <snip> > > and there are other reasons why the second drive is unreadable. > > It could be something as simple as a loose IDE cable. > > The second drive is readable. FDISK reported the partitioning. No, the drive is *NOT* readable to the OS. If the OP could read it why would he have posted here: ___begin quote My computer recognizes the former D drive but when I try to read it I get a message that says D:\ is not accessible. ___end of quote I have absolutely seen drives with a partially slipped back IDE connector that were detected by the bios, yet had some type of serious problem that made them either unreadable...or in one case...made a drive read only. I am not saying that's what happened...merely saying there are other possibilities. > > The OP might have run fdisk and deleted the drive, then recreated it in > > error and not formatted it. etc > > I think OP would have remembered FDISKing his backup data and having to > re-create a partition. You are correct I'd think he'd have remembered that... OTOH: I say he should also have recalled uninstalling the drive overlay. Unless we can talk to the OP and ask him all that he had done... it's still within the realm of speculation. > > As far as data recovery goes...I cited the case of a non-detected drive > > merely as a hopeless scenario... [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > without attempting to recover any of the files but just to see what's there" > I would not have commented, even though I think it's a waste of time. Again...installing data recovery software is only dangerous if it's being installed on the partition where the lost data exists. Since the OP cannot access his 2nd drive...I think it quite impossible that he install the software there. Software normally installs on the system drive by default anyway. Data recovery software , though of course may turn up nothing... generally works as long as the user has not attempted to write or alter in any way... the "troubled" disk. It does not hurt anything to try. > > Again...the existence of a drive overlay was never answered by the OP > > when you had asked that question. [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > Then you should be framing your replies on the basis that you do not have > the whole picture. As I said: It's the MS server that is giving me the problem... and that is why I look on both servers. Though I have once recently had a post dropped, then re-appear...Since I can follow threads... it's not likely I've missed anything. It seems there was nothing on this thread I've missed at least. I hope the OP returns but I think he may be gone for good. I think you and I both know that if the machine was sitting on either one of our benches, we'd have it figured out in a few minutes. Trouble-shooting "long distance" is tediously slow. Heck, with the machine on the bench either one of us could have tried about a dozen things in just a few minutes and have been done with it in the time it takes to make a single post. Nice talking to you at any rate. Well since I always have a test machine on the bench I decided to try out a few drive overlay utilites. I had both maxtor and WD and tried them both. Though one was called EZ install and the other was EZ drive, they were really the same overlay... But they did not appear to be the same as an EZ Bios utility I used a number of years back. Though installing the overlay took out any data on the drive which I setup with as dos... a second drive , D: was not affected one way or the other... and whether or not the C: drive had an overlay on it or not... nothing on the D: drive was in any way touched. I confirmed that all data were there. (with or without the overlay) I am going to have to try to find the old utility EZ Bios and if I can find it anywhere...may see if that overlay is any different... but I think they are all probably about the same. Well, since I got up at my usual 4 am... I am now at the end of my day...so no more experimenting tonight . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz What did you expect to happen? Please look at the documentation that was provided with that software. Installing a drive overlay ENABLES access to the partitioning that it supports. It does not require that either the boot drive or any other drive in the system is configured with that partitioning. If the installation overwrote the contents of the C drive that's because you asked it to set up a managed partition on that drive. Partitions created while the overlay is active may or may not be standard DOS partitions, depending on options chosen. However, if such partitioning does exist then the overlay enables those partitions to be recognised as if they were standard DOS partitions, and they are accessible to the OS. And, BTW, FDISK will remove that special partitioning provided the overlay is not active when FDISK is run. If the overlay is active it will trap the FDISK commands and either ignore them (most commonly) or convert them for the different partition structure (eg, FDISK /Status). In some cases, when FDISK is run without the overlay active it will refuse to remove the partition because it doesn't recognise the type - that's version dependant. SignatureJeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) > Well since I always have a test machine on the bench > I decided to try out a few drive overlay utilites. [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > > zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz > What did you expect to happen? > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > FDISK is run without the overlay active it will refuse to remove the > partition because it doesn't recognise the type - that's version dependant. Let's back up and start from the beginning...as I am sure the OP is long gone...and this has simply become a discussion between the two of us... but maybe the OP will show up. Now. Since I was able to get a good night's sleep... I re-read your first reply and see the wisdom of it. I was able to find several of my Maxtor, HD install floppies and see that they have used both EZ drive or EZ bios as an overlay. Though I believe they are pretty much the same utility, EZ bios does give a boot screen which informs the user that EZ bios is installed, whereas EZ drive did not give any such message. So I think that your reply was an excellent observation... but I am still not 100% sure if it is right. Had the overlay been installed and the 2nd drive had indeed been setup from running fdisk within windows the configuration of the 2nd drive could have been dependent up on the overlay. I did not test that to see with my own eyes how it works. I am going to assume (for now) you are 100% right. Even if the OP ran fdisk and formatted the C: drive and even if he sys'ed the C: drive===> the overlay would *still* be installed. I just tested that this morning to verify. What I did was first setup the drive with EZ-Bios I confirmed that it was installed. I then booted directly from a floppy ran fdisk and deleted what fdisk now saw as a non-dos partition. recreated, rebooted, then formatted and finally sys'ed the drive. EZ bios was still enabled and installed. As I have mentioned previously...EZ Bios is pretty tough to get rid of. To removed it, one must first run the EZ bios setup utility and disable it. then exit and save... finally, re-run the setup and uninstall it. So I am sure the OP would have recalled that. It's been a while...but about the only other way to get rid of a drive overlay is to run the mfg's so called lo-level format or some other utility designed for "blasting" a HD. If you have a old spare drive , give it a try and you'll see what I mean. You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on the second drive. What you should have done for your test was this. -Create a boot disk with a DOS partition and an OS installed. -Install the overlay. Do not convert the existing DOS partition on the boot disk to a managed partition. -Create a managed partition on the second drive. -Use FDISK to confirm the partition details. -Remove the overlay. This might be possible with a boot to floppy (using the magic technique) and SYS C: or it might require FDISK/MBR or it might require using FDISK to remove the partition and reinstall it together with the OS. It's version and product dependant. Whatever, DON'T TOUCH THE SECOND DISK -Reboot. The overlay is now inactive and the partition on the second drive is inaccessible. There might be a small DOS partition in the unusable space at the end of the managed partition, but it won't be formatted. Use FDISK to see the partition details. -Re-install the overlay. The partition on the second disk will now be accessible and undamaged. The overlay is relatively easy to remove and can be done accidentally. Converting the managed partition back to a DOS partition without damaging the data is the difficult bit. Note that you could REALLY do the OP a favour if you developed a way of making the overlay active without installing it on the boot drive - eg boot from specially configured floppy. SignatureJeff Richards MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User) > > snip < [quoted text clipped - 22 lines] > > If you have a old spare drive , give it a try and you'll see what I mean. > You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay > resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on the [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > making the overlay active without installing it on the boot drive - eg boot > from specially configured floppy. I am back at work now, so don't have time to run any more tests at the moment... but I have no reason to dis-believe anything you've said. My point was simply that the overlay is *not* easy to remove. I could *not* remove it by running fdisk and deleting the entire drive nor could I removed it by booting from floppy and doing a sys C: The only way of getting the overlay removed was by running the utility that installed it and disabling it...then exit and save. Then re-run the utility and uninstall the overlay. As I mentioned, the only other way I've been able to remove an overlay is by the so called "blast the HD method" with a the mfg's lo-level format or some other similar utility. Again...give it a try with an old , spare HD and you will see that the overlay is very hard to get rid of... The OP surely would have had to do so purposely. > > You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay > > resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on [quoted text clipped - 21 lines] > > -Re-install the overlay. The partition on the second disk will now be > > accessible and undamaged. <snip> OK you are right!!!! Here is where I went wrong so I hope you can excuse me. If the HD has an overlay and one would boot from a floppy ...by passing the overlay's prompt to press <control> to boot from a floppy....then perform a sys C: since the overlay is bypassed...the sys C: command would *not* take out the overlay nor would there even be a C: drive (unless perhaps the RAM drive) Now...as I stated before, I have tried to remove overlays in the past and from a win98 boot floppy there are no tools to do so, other than by using debug. Also, as I mentioned before, even running fdisk /mbr will still not remove the overlay If one runs fdisk /mbr then reruns the EZ Bios setup it will be shown as installed and enabled <<<HOWEVER>>>In my foolishness I did not realize that though it's still there... a new mbr is written...so the overlay...though still on the drive and enabled... is NOT the mbr that's in use. So reinstalling win98 from a bootdisk that had bypassed the overlay would write a new mbr and the overlay would not be on the MBR that's being used... even though the EZ bios utility still sees it as present and accounted for. Thank you for your patience as your scenario was clearly the most likely by far! (whew, that was a good one) > > > You are confusing the overlay with the managed partition. The overlay > > > resides on the boot drive. The managed partition (in this case) was on [quoted text clipped - 64 lines] > > (whew, that was a good one) BTW: Don't spend that bonus check... the OP may have had "Go Back" installed rather than an overlay <G> |
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