What can I do with a HD that won't boot?

alexzarach

Here are the HD details, if they help:

Fujitsu (Thailand) Hard Drive
Model: MHH2032AT
Part No.:CA05311-B020
Serial No.:01048735
Date: 1999-11

If I boot with the HD, I get an error:

Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key

This is the same error I had some time ago, except the method used last time won't work this time.

If I boot without the HD, I get an error:

Operating System not found

I am out of ideas now.

Lupinthe3rd

What OS is on the disk? and does it show up in the bios during boot?

alexzarach

The disk HAD windows 98SE on it, may have started off with NT4.0. It does show up in bios.

Lupinthe3rd

Right what seems to have happend is that your boot sector has gone screwy. Simply get a 98Se boot disk, load it up (cd or floppy disk) and type SYS C:, restart take disk out and that should work. If not post back.

alexzarach

It won't boot to any disk apart from the 'sdisk' or 'super fdisk' floppy disk, which can do 'sdisk' but doesn't have any cd support. I have no floppy drives apart from my deceased laptop's one, and nobody I know has one.

Lupinthe3rd

So your saying the system won't boot from a Win98SE cdrom and?. What you could do then is download a floppy image of 98SE, burn this image as the boot sector to a cd (Nero can do this, it's oin the make a bootable cd option somewhere). Then boot up using that and then try using SYS C:. Post back if still no help. If not ask me and I can make you an image of a 98SE boot floppy on cd and email it to you.

anantha92

try doing a "clear 7-pass wrting 0 to the disks" way. I know the OSX86 discs have that option and i ahve heard of thigns such as kill disk. Try to write 0s tot he disk format it and install 98 or wtv on it. It should work i have fixed many hds like that.

Lupinthe3rd

He wants to be able to boot to it without doing any of that though anantha92, hence why I suggest trying to sys the partiton first. Any news alexzarach?

anantha92

ive had the exact same problem on my older hds i ahd a while ago. Well alexzarach if no results show up try my way its bound to work, if not i guess you'll just have to use it for storage.

alexzarach

It refuses to boot from any cd, the hd or all floppies except the 'super f-disk' floppy which has no cd support. My HD is still sold online for

Lupinthe3rd

Well does the system boot to a cd or anything without said drive in?

BOD

What the hell People.

What are you intedning to do with the drive exactly? Storage? booting?

Bash

BOD wrote:

What the hell People.

What are you intedning to do with the drive exactly? Storage? booting?

The guy who has the problem wants to boot, yet Anantha wants to wipe it clean :shock:

I'm lost.

anantha92

wipe it clean and re-install windows.... Or if it ahs info on it then im sorry.

alexzarach

It has no OS on it, I can not boot from most floppies or any cds. I can use an fdisk floppy, as mentioned earlier, which has no cd support so I can't install 98SE (it won't take anything higher than ME). I used the fdisk program (freedos program, not the fdisk command) to clear the HD twice, and erased and created the c: and a partition. No luck.

alexzarach

Bash wrote:

BOD wrote:

What the hell People.

What are you intedning to do with the drive exactly? Storage? booting?

The guy who has the problem wants to boot, yet Anantha wants to wipe it clean :shock:

I'm lost.

I want to get 98SE on it and boot to it.

BOD

Go to fuhitsus site and download whatever hard drive software they have, that'll check the drive for errors, as well as low level format it.

alexzarach

How? It won't boot from anything, and it currently has no OS. I can't get an OS on it if it won't boot from the setup cd, or the 98se boot disk.

Q

Here's the basic problem: He has no floppy drive, so he can't make a boot disk, and the system doesn't support booting from a CD straight up.

-Q

alexzarach

Also, it refuses to boot from any boot disks I made on it when it was still alive.

Here's the prpblem:

Quote:

Here are the HD details, if they help:

Fujitsu (Thailand) Hard Drive
Model: MHH2032AT
Part No.:CA05311-B020
Serial No.:01048735
Date: 1999-11

If I boot with the HD, I get an error:

Quote:
Invalid system disk
Replace the disk, and then press any key


This is the same error I had some time ago, except the method used last time won't work this time.

If I boot without the HD, I get an error:

Quote:
Operating System not found


I am out of ideas now.

BOD

CAn't you just stick it in another system?

alexzarach

A laptop HD? I don't want to have to waste money on a new xp/vista laptop that can't run all my dos apps-they don't even rfun in dosbox or any other dos emulators.

Q

I have a questionable Toshiba HD...

-Q

alexzarach

If I have to replace it, I'll get the same hdd to be on the safe side:

http://www.ultratec.co.uk/stocklists/Se ... =MHH2032AT

EDIT:But I really don't want to...

BOD

You could buy one of those cheap caddies. Theyre about

alexzarach

I have the HDD caddy, I just need to clear the HDD in it, somehow. I think something wants a boot disk to boot on it, which refuses to be deleted. I need to delete it, somehow. My HD is now gathering dust on top of my laptop.

alexzarach

BOD wrote:

You could buy one of those cheap caddies. Theyre about

BOD

No I meant buy one to put the thing in, connect it to a computer that can boot and fix it from there .

alexzarach

I currently have a cd drive in my pc's slot which is ver by stiff and takes a lot of strength to remove (really), but for

Wipeout

So you can't boot from floppy? Cause if you can get a bootdisk image from bootdisk.com and write it. It's the same as the Windows 98SE EBD.

Q

Wipeout wrote:

So you can't boot from floppy? Cause if you can get a bootdisk image from bootdisk.com and write it.

That's the problem, he has only one floppy drive: The one in the defective machine (laptop), which can't be added to another one for the purposes of writing the disk.

-Q