MY hard drive was running perfectly good with win 98 (its a 60 gig 2 1/2") then i wanted to put red hat on it. so i reformatted it. and did a complete partition for linux. Well the bios didnt like red had. so when i took off the partition i think it some how scared the hard drive i have no clue how to get it working again. I used killdisk to take off the existing partitions because it would not allow for me to just easily format them. Now i am trying to put Knoppix(its very good if ur unfamiliar) on it... well when i go to start the partition onto the hard drive all i get is trouble. its like it cannot find the hard disk.
I think it might have some bad sectors from trying to format the disk so many times.
so post if you have any suggestions and thanks i love you guys!!!

Hi

Have you tried Ms fdisk or a linux fdisk. Once the drive is partitioned it can be formatted.

i have tried fdisking it
and well it would not even show the harddrive was there

n e more suggestions?

I finally got a partition to work and checked it. But now i am trying to put some files in it from dos and it says "invalid media type reading drive C" then options abort, retry, fail
does mean that the hard drive is not responding or what?

I had all sorts of problems like you are having where fdisk on DOS 6,6.22,7.1, W98Se boot disks would not work to clean up the drive. Found Partition Magic ver 5 was the only thing that worked to clear the drive. Versions 6 & 7 of PM were no good either.
Hope this helps.

After partitioning with fdisk is completed you reboot and format the drive before installing your OS.Good luck.

i will try both of those in the order suggested hopefully it will work
thanks for all the help:)

i cannot find partition magic ver 5 do you know who sells it or where i can find it on the net

Hi

Visit the hard drive manufactures website, If they have the diagnostic and a setup utility - download them. You need a couple of good floppy disks. Have a boot disk handy for what ever os you want to setup on the primary partition... It all pretty straight forward.

Diagnose

Zero the drive (or a low lewel format). Killdisk will zero the drive ok as well.

Setup - create partitions, and install initial system files onto drive.

Thanx i will try that stuff now and report back

ok i tried the kill disk several times and made new partitions that did not help but it is funny that i can create a partition but i cannot add stuff to it. i think that might be a clue to the problem. I found a copy of partition magic 5.0 also but it will not run in dos. so i dont know how i am suppost to work that.

My theory now is that the hard drive has just gone bad. Hopefully somebody knows how to fix it. but well i think its a RIP drive

Hi

Yeah - It all pretty straight forward

Diagnose; zero the drive ; use the utility from hard drive Manufacturer to Setup. It it fails on the diagnose part - you are a much better position to decide what to do next. Generally I retest the drive in another computer to be sure.

There are a few companyies that fail to provide a diagnostic for their drive. In which case you can check out Ontrack for a generic general test.

Hi

I have forgotten to ask what laptop you have. Wouldn't be a compaq at all?

Well i am glad to say i got it to work. But it wasnt how any one suggested. What i did was i took my win98 cd and installed that suprisingly that worked. Then i upgraded that into windows XP. and it is a five gig partition now i am hoping to do the rest of the 30 gig for a partition of knoppix linux. hopefully it will work. And i think this will be my last post for this forum thanks for all of your help everybody.

Hi

I have to ask how else were you trying to do it apart from using your 98 install cd?

Hi

Do you mean you had to use the recovery CD?

nope i just inserted the windows 98 CD and installed on the existing partition that had not been working before.