You might try running FDISK, either from windows or dos. Answer Y to large disk support and then option 5, to change drives. Choose to change to the second drive and then option 4--partition information. Post back exactly what it says.

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Did you plug the old drive up correctly? Depending on how you did this you will have to set its master/slave jumper accordingly. DerekW

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Donna seems to have disappeared.

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I didn't disappear - I was at work and I couldn't get logged in at another computer. I talked to a computer guru and he has the equipment to recover data. He put the bad drive in his "server" and was unable to retrieve any data. He said there is something physically wrong with the drive. He did suggest to put it in the freezer for 12 hours and then hook it up to the computer to see whether I can get it to spin long enough to get data and pictures copied. Thanks, Donna

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You can try the freezer trick but it is a one-shot only effort. You can only do it once. If the drive is physically damaged like knackerd bearings on the drive spindle or the head seek mechanism broke then there is not a lot you can do. In extreme cases it is possible to remove the disk platters and re-mount them inside a working hard disk case to recover data. But that is getting into the range of mission critical data costing thousands of dollars as it requires a clean room environment with people expert with the inner workings of a hard disk. Stuart

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Donna - you really shouldn't keep starting new topics on the same issue (forum policy) - that is why your latest message was deleted To answer your question: Connecting the 'bad' drive as the primary master is not a very good plan. You have to be running an operating system from somewhere in order to copy the files to a reliable location, so you would basically connect the drive as anything but primary master. My understanding of the 'freezer trick' is that (if it works at all) it's time sensitive - you may have minutes or hours to salvage files, so you'd want to hook it up quickly and temporarily, on a machine with the cover off - no need to attach the drive to the chassis, just plug in the power and data cables, and ensure it's jumpered correctly as master or slave I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

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Common sense would tell you if the drive is damaged you wouldn't want to attempt to boot to it. Connect as a slave, preferably on the seconary IDE channel. I refer back to Response #1 as a viable course of action. If the drive has damaged heads or isn't spinning up then Knoppix won't be able to access it either. If the drive isn't spinning up the freezer trick MIGHT work. If it were my drive I would try Knoppix before the freezer trick. If Knoppix couldn't access it I would try tapping on the side of the drive with something like a pencil to see if that would free it up. The freezer trick should be a last resort. The fact that Windows says the drive isn't accessable could mean the file system is corrupt. In that case Knoppix should work.

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Yeah - there's not much logic in trying to boot from a bad drive Anyways, sure - much depends on what's wrong with the drive - it could be mechanically 'dead' & beyond salvage. If it's something like a bad partition table (for instance) then no OS is going to 'see' the files, and recovery software would be indicated I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

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jboy I believe Knoppix CAN see the files when the partition table is crapped out.

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The bad drive does not make any noises. It boots to the Welcome to Windows 98 screen and then it goes no farther. The hard drive light just stays on and doesn't flicker or anything. I suppose it is spinning, I don't hear anything so I really don't know. The computer man thought the hard drive had physical damage to it. I swear, I never touched the drive before it went bad!!!!!!

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If you boot to the Windows splash screen then I don't think the Harddrive is broken. Your Windows installation is corrupted. Try Knoppix.

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Well, I never thought of that. I had GoBack on my system. When I boot up, the GoBack flashes on the screen for about 2 seconds, giving me the opportunity to press the spacebar to get into the program. I did press the spacebar and chose a date before the drive went bad, was able to get in to "go back" but was unable to get it past the splash screen again.. GoBack even uninstalled itself then. Something was still not working right. The hard drive makes no noise of any kind. How would Windows get corrupted? I went over to the Knoppix website and I am still reading about it. I hope it will work for me. Is it an operating system? Donnaa

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Yes, it is a version of Linux that boots from and runs from the CD disk. Get it and try it. You set the BIOS to boot to the CD drive and Knoppix starts. You will be able to copy and paste the files you need to recover from the old drive to the new drive. NO NOT use CUT & PASTE. Use copy and paste. It is more trouble but you don't risk losing the file. If you want to, you can delete the file AFTER you are positive you have a GOOD copy of it on the new drive. I suspect that after all is said and done you will be able to reformat the old drive and continue to use it.

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OtheHill, You are getting my hopes up here. Correct me if I am wrong - I hook my old hard drive up as a slave to my new hard drive. I boot from the Knoppix CD, will it give me an option to look at my old drive (that one being D drive)? Then what will I see/do?

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Hopefully you will be able to see the files on the old drive. If so, you simply copy and paste using the standard Windows format. Knoppix has a graphical intface similar to Windows so you don't need to use any typed commands. Your mouse will do. There are help files within Knoppix if you get stuck. If you are going to download Knoppix you will need a computer with a CD burner in it to burn the Knoppix CD. Instructions on how to do that are provided. Or you can choose to buy a CD that has already been setup. Look here: http://www.knoppix.org/

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I can download the software from work. We have DSL there. I have a burner on my computer there too. Can I drag and drop like in Explore? or is it different. Is the Knoppix taking the place of Windows 98? But the data files will be there where I can see them, hopefully?

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There is an explorer in Knoppix, like Win98. I don't know if drag & drop works but I do know copy/paste works like in Windows. Highlight file> right click> select copy> highlight target folder>right click> paste.

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If this works, you are the best!! GoBack indicated I have some bad sectors on the hard drive. Will this keep me from copying files? Can Windows 98 not boot because of bad sectors? How do bad sectors get on the hard drive anyway? Can I boot with my floppy boot disk and type dir c: and see if there any files on the bad drive? If I can see files on the c drive, isn't that a good sign that I can get the data off the hard drive?

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Refer back to Response #1. Patience.

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I will download the info on a CD tomorrow. I will let you know what happens. This is all new to me. I have had this computer since April 2001. It was built by Monarch Computers in Georgia. I have never had a problem since I have had it. I am at a loss as what to do with this problem. Sorry if I seem impatient.

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I ordered the Knoppix cd. The download was going to take about 6 hours. I hope to have the cd on Thursday. I will let you know if I can retrieve my data from the bad drive.

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OK Donna, I'll look for your post.

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I never have received the Knoppix CD I ordered off the Net. I finally was able to download one though. Can you guide me through what I need to do now? Does it automatically boot up and then what do I do then?

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It has been quite awile since I burned it to disc but as I recall the directions on how to make the CD were pretty simple. I assume you have already done that. All you need to do is be sure the BIOS is set to boot to CD before the HDrive. I suggest that you first boot to the Knoppix CD and read the prompts. It is pretty simple. Once you have things setup the first thing to do is to be sure that you CAN access the files and folders you need to retrieve. Assuming that is OK, you then need to decide where you wish to copy the files to. Knoppix should be able to configure burners and external harddrives as well as seeing the good internal drive. Depending on how much room you have on the new drive you could simply create a Temp folder and copy everything to that folder. You can have subfolders inside the temp folder and you should be able to perform bulk copying by holding down Shift key to highlight a number of consecutive files or Control key to pick and choose files. As I told you before you want to use the COPY and paste commands, not CUT and paste. You can lose data that way. If you have large amounts of files to copy you can lose track of which ones have been copied. So it might be a good idea to make a list of what has been copied from the bad drive. As far as performing that operation it works like Windows. Just take it slow and DON'T DELETE anything off the bad drive. After you are completely finished and have verified ALL files are intact you can then try to format the old drive for use as a second drive. Why don't you try booting to the Knoppix CD and see what you can do by yourself. Just remember, don't delete anything and you shouldn't get into trouble.

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I have put the Knoppix CD in and booted with it and looked at the good drive. I have not hooked up my bad drive yet. I thought I would just wait and do that tomorrow (Sat). I don't want to do it tonight because then if it doesn't work, I will lay awake all night wondering what I could do to make it work. I just looked around to get familiar with what I was seeing. Things are similar but different.

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Similar but different is a good way to express it. You could try copying a couple of files from one place to a temp file on the new drive just for practice.

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Ah, still hard at it. Hmmm - 'GoBack' you say? I don't think there's ever been a report here of it Not causing problems 'O' - wrt #15 - - that's news to me, I'll have to give that a try on this funky drive I've been saving. Let the experiment continue... however "The hard drive light just stays on and doesn't flicker or anything." suggests a drive head problem, and not too promising a prospect. Oh well, it's the journey & not the destination, I suppose I'm not one of those who think Bill Gates is the devil. I simply suspect that if Microsoft ever met up with the devil, it wouldn't need an interpreter

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jboy When Donna tried to boot to the drive in question the Windows splash screen appeared and then the boot failed. There may be some physical damage but I can't see how the splash screen could appear if the drive was dead.

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Sat. morning, I thought I would hook up the bad drive as a slave to the good drive and boot up the good drive and try to access the bad drive AGAIN. Oh my goodness, when I went to Windows Explorer and clicked on "D" the bad drive (knowing I would again get "Drive D: In accessible") it opened up and there were all my pictures and data. I clicked on Drive E (I had partitioned the old drive into 2 partitions) and there was still more data. I never had to use the Knoppix CD. I guess all the attempts to get it to work ( I even took it to a computer guru that has a machine that can recover data from failed drives) well, somehow it worked. When I first booted up, scandisk tried to check for errors (in DOS) and when it wouldn't even do that, I finally got passed that and boot to the desktop. I have copied all data and pictures to drive C and then burned it all on a CD. I was able to get my Quicken files from a previous backup on Drive E. Now I don't know what to do with the "bad drive". Should I run Scan Disk and Defrag and see what they find? I am not able to access any programs from the bad drive - don't know why. Thank you OtheHill for sticking with me on this journey.

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I am glad that everything worked out for you in the end. Try playing around with Knoppix. It is kind of neat because it can run off the CD. Download and run the diagnostic software for whatever brand harddrive from the manufacturers website. If that says the drive is OK then it should be safe to use for storage. Remember to always backup.

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UPDATE: The bad drive cannot be defraged or scandisked. When I tried to run scan disk, the hard drive light stays on and there is no activity. I can copy data from it and that is all - that's all I wanted to do anyway. I thought just maybe I could get it to work again, but that is not going to happen and that's OK. I have everything I need off of it. Thanks again.

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Drives are pretty cheap these days anyway.

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