josh4him

hey guys! Thanks in advanced for helping me!!!! Okay, i have an external 160gb hd. It was connected to my sony laptop when i tried to do a fullon system wipeout, so my sony software saw my hd and thought it was part of the D drive. I disconnected it and restarted my sony laptop, but my HD had some configuration changed in it! It is now in a eisa configuration (i'm assuming instead of scsi) and when i am in disk managagement, (from start menu, right click my computer, click manage, then disk management), it says the name of the HD (jake) and no letters or nothing. I right click the HD and the menu just says help, no reformat, properties, ect. So, i already recovered my data, (long story short, rebuilt mbr and partitions, recovered stuff with runtime.org's getdataback software (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)) but want to actually USE my HD now. The external will not show up in my computer, and it says it's not bootable. Thanks guys!
josh

linderman

Whewww That doesnt sound so bad after all / I strongly advise the use of FDISK (for large disk support above 64Gig) and then delete all logical drives and partition info on the drive until option #4 (the dispaly partitions and logical drives) says "you have no partitions & you have no logical drives present on this computer)

then go into fdisk and and make you partitions and logical drives over again
after your work is done in fdisk / then when you go into windows as usual and click on the "logical drives" from within disk management it will then ask you to formatt he drives for use / click yes

Thats it

now if you haved used Fdisk / I have a thread started in this section "hard drives" print it and review it / you can get the Windows ME bootdisk from www.bootdisk.com (free)

let us know how you progress

One word of caution / disconnect your current "boot drive" during fdisk use / then you cant wipe it out accidentally!

then if you want to get really kinky / after you have got the 160 back up and running use xxclone.com (kindergarten easy) to clone all your disk off the ide drive onto the 160 and make it bootable (providing the 160 is not a USB) thats a whole other "fix"



regards

joe

josh4him

Here's a few quesitons! (thanks for the help also!)
1. XP doesn't have fdisk, so what should i do about that? (is that the link u gave me? which dl shoudl i get)
2. It's a usb 2.0 external, but i dont think that should matter. Thanks again!

linderman

Josh:

Yes the link I gave you is for obtaining the win ME bootdisk (www.bootdisk.com) which has fdisk on it

as for the USB / yeah there are some "bumps" to get them to perform as a "bootable" drive ( I am pretty sure anyway ) windows has to be started up before the USB functions / pretty hard to get windows strated first when that drive is suppose to do the startin !!!

But I might be confusing get a USB CD-rom to be a "bootable" device

anyway give it a whirl / if it dont work as a bootable give use a holler!

regards


joe

josh4him

Thanks so much for the help! i'll post what happens!
as for the bootable thing, i just put that in for a fact, I dont need to boot off of it :) Thanks again!
josh

linderman

Josh:

As I remebered some USB drives can be made to boot from providing the bios can be configured to support it.

Review this link / then you will understand the parameters

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/device...boot.mspx#EGAA

Ps: Regardless of bootability / get the drive "cleaned" and partitioned and then format for windows use at the least. Cant live without a back-up ! Although a bootable back-up is almost as good as sex when it works !! LOL


regards


joe


regards


Joe

josh4him

I wanted to give you an update into what I had to do :)

First i got getbatadack for NTFS v 2.31 (paid version) and recovered all my data on the external HD which didn't show up in my computer but did in this program. I transfered all of my data to a desktop, and then off to the external to fix it :) I had to use diskpart.exe from the start-> run menu and had to list disk, then select disk 1, then list partitions, select partition 1, then delete partition override.
I knew to use diskpart (actually, more like took a chance) by reading this on microsofts helppage,

"If Windows XP Professional recognizes an OEM partition, Disk Management displays the partition as Healthy (EISA Configuration). You cannot use Disk Management to format, delete, assign drive letters or drive paths to, or access data on Healthy (EISA Configuration) partitions. However, you can use DiskPart to delete OEM partitions by using the delete partition command and specifying the override parameter. Deleting an OEM partition can prevent Windows XP Professional from starting, so it is recommended that you do not delete OEM partitions."

I realized i had that eisa configuration and that i had to get rid fo an oem partition (oem stands for an "unknown original equipment manufacturer (OEM)."
After diskpart.exe, i went to disk managament and formatted the now unallocated external to a normal, nfts external hard drive! Hope this provides info for you and if you don't understand anything i'll be more than happy to tell you! Thanks!
josh

linderman

Josh:

Thanks for the update / we were pretty much in the same line of thinking just using different software utilities to do that. Your method sounds solid, I think I will give that one a whirl myself in the near future just for the hellva it. I often help friends with "cleaning" their hard drive and re-install of the OS

FYI another really useful program is this one

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

it overwrites the complete hard drive with zero's (wiping clean) the drive / no more hidden OEM partitions or any other crap / many guys make the mistake of thinking that an OS format cleans the drive / it does not !!!! ? it only cleans the sectors it plans to use during the actuial install like the new MBR , partition table etc

after running boot & nuke the drive will be just like the day you bought it !!


thanks for your info

joe