fixmbr isn't fixing mbr

[Jenko]

I have a 120 gig Western Digital Harddrive with currently no operating system, and also no partition.

Now, I've been trying to install xp on my harddrive and apparently the MBR is messed up. I went to repair console on the XP start up disk and did the fix mbr. it said that I had an invalid mbr and when I fix mbr it says that it was written sucessfully. Now when I go back to the xp install to install xp it says that it doesn't have any xp compatiable partitions

the message as follows:

to install xp on the partition you selected (which is the unpartioned space thats 8062 mg), set up must write on the following disk

8063mb disk 0 at Id on bus 0 on atapi MBR


, and that I have to create one. I've tried to create one but It never creates it. it just brings me back to the set up screen with only the unpartioned space showing.


I have the jumpers connected so the harddrive is the master, the ide cable is set up for it to be master as well.

Also there seems to be something wrong in the bios the name that it has for my harddrive is as follows:

[WDC WDC220BB/62CJA 2 " " " "]

I know that this isn't right because before it started acting up, it didn't have all those quotation marks. Oh yeah, what cause this I think is when I originally deleted a partition holding windows xp and didn't continue the set up.

I hope I was thorough enough?

Thanks for anything you can do ^_^\/

[Tazzin]

Please list all the partitions and sizes of them on your drive.

If there isn't anything you want to keep on your drive.. I would just set it up as a slave on another XP Pro box.. and use the Admistrative Tools to Delete all the partitions and Format the whole drive.

Then when you run XP setup it will see it as one big ~120GB drive. Create the partitions you want within XP Setup and install XP.

Grab a Win98 bootdisk and run FDISK /MBR from DOS to overwrite the MBR. Then use FDISK to delete any existing partitions, then set a primary partition for the whole drive.

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

You will need to also download the updated FDISK download from near the bottom of the above linked page.

Robert Richmond

[Jenko]

i have no parttions and the only thing it lists is unpartioned space which is a 8062 mg

also the 98 boot disk seems not to work, it keeps saying remove all media from the drives but I don't have any cds in my two cd drives and thats the only harddrive hooked up.

[jmichna]

If RobRich's suggestions don't work...
Does your PC motherboard's BIOS recognize hard drives that large (120gb)? Do you need a BIOS update? Do you have the correct cable (most likely 80-pin)? Maybe the drive itself is defective (as Tazzin suggested, could try as a slave on another PC and see if it can be formatted)

[MaxVal]

I noticed that you have the drive set as master.
W.D. disks need a slave drive present when set as master. If it's alone, "park" the jumper or use cable select

[jmichna]

Originally posted by MaxVal
I noticed that you have the drive set as master.
W.D. disks need a slave drive present when set as master. If it's alone, "park" the jumper or use cable select

Good pick up, MaxVal! Yeah, seems WD drives don't like to be 'masters' if no 'slave' is present. There should be a jumper setting for 'single' drive. If not, try as MaxVal suggests.

[RustyGT]

Originally posted by MaxVal
I noticed that you have the drive set as master.
W.D. disks need a slave drive present when set as master. If it's alone, "park" the jumper or use cable select

Nice tip Max. But what a bizarre quirk. Something so simple and yet hardly obvious.
Makes you wonder why they did that?

Strange indeed. Rusty.

[S.D.Willie]

i killed a hard drive the other day and during the post, the bios shows the drive as a 40g drive but all these strange characters/digits after it. i would run data lifeguard tools which you can get off western digital's site to see if that drive is good.

[Jenko]

Thats what happened with mine, the strange symbols at the end. I downloaded the diognostic tool and the funny thing is it says it has a drive cable error before it could even scan it. So now to be completely sure, is the drive cable the same as the ribbon that connects the harddrive to the mother board?