Topic: I have computer related questions. Can you help?

[bustin98]

Windows98SE can see partitions of around 138GB. The simple answer is just plugging it in. If this didn't work, then the issue might be your motherboard. BTW, the original version of 98 has a limit of 64GB. So, you're still golden.

[Mop it up]

I put the hard drive in. The computer recognizes it on the startup screen (the black screen with white letters), but it doesn't show up anywhere else, such as in "My Computer" or the hardware list.

[bustin98]

I copy and pasted this. Its been too long since I've even seen a Win98 machine:

In Windows 98/Me, you have to partition and format your hard drive manually. It isn't that hard really; we'll start with the portioning process, which uses a DOS-based utility called FDISK. WebTechGeek.com

The Steps:

1. From within Windows, click the Start button and select Run. When the Run dialog box appears, enter FDISK into the Open box and click OK.

2. When FDISK starts (in a DOS window), you'll be asked if you want to enable large disk support. Answer Yes.

3. The FDISK menu is now displayed. Select the drive you want to partition, and then choose option 1 (Create DOS Partition or Logical DOS Drive).

4. When asked if you want to use the entire drive for your DOS partition, answer Yes. (If you're asked whether you want to enable FAT32 support, also answer Yes.)

5. After the partition is created, follow the onscreen prompts to exit FDISK and restart your computer.

6. After your new drive has been partitioned, you have to format it for use. To format a new hard drive manually. Format a Computer Hard Drive or Disc Drive:

Note: Don't run FDISK on an existing hard disk drive, unless you're really sure you want to return your hard drive to its original from-the-factory condition. Partitioning the drive will delete all data on the drive!

A. From within Windows, open My Computer.

B. Right-click the drive you want to format, and select Format from the pop-up menu.

C. When the Format Local Disk dialog box appears, select the File System you want to use (only select NTFS if you're running Windows XP; for older operating systems, choose FAT32), enter a label for the disk, select the Quick Format option, and then click Start.

D. After your new drive has been partitioned and formatted, it's ready to store whatever data you need stored. Format a Computer Hard Drive or Disc Drive.

[Mop it up]

Thanks, but it looks like that isn't what I'm looking for.

Is there any way to use it with Windows 98 without formatting/deleting all the data? The reason I want to connect it is to get files from it.

[Caliban]

Just a hunch, but did you set it as the slave drive?

[kraken613]

I guess I might as well ask this... though I expect the answer will be "no," assuming anyone will even respond.

Is there any simple way to get a Windows 98 computer to recognize a 40GB hard drive?

There is a simple way to solve your problems.

Get off of Windows 98 and get a new computer. That OS is 12 years old and not officially supported by Microsoft anymore and hasn't been since 2006.

[bustin98]

The drive has to be formatted in FAT32 for Windows98 to read it. Is it possible that the drive originally came from an OS newer than Win98/ME? Or from WinNT? If so, you are more than likely out of luck. If the drive was originally from Win98, its possible that the boot sector is damaged, which could be solved by software. I don't know of any of the top of my head, maybe some others here can give some suggestions.

Just a hunch, but did you set it as the slave drive?

It seems good since she did see it in BIOS. Win98 just doesn't recognize it.

[Mop it up]

The drive has to be formatted in FAT32 for Windows98 to read it. Is it possible that the drive originally came from an OS newer than Win98/ME? Or from WinNT? If so, you are more than likely out of luck.

It's from a WinXP that no longer functions. So I guess it'll work only in WinXP machines without formatting?

Just a hunch, but did you set it as the slave drive?

I don't know what that means. But, if it means anything, I replaced a different hard drive ( not C) because there were no open plugs.

And I would like a new computer (I'm using an XP machine right now that has various issues, including that it doesn't recognize any new hardware which is why I can't put the hard drive in question into this computer), but I don't think a computer is worth paying for. I'm just waiting until someone I know buys a new computer, and I can take their old one. That's how I got all of my previous computers.

[kraken613]

You can get cheap nettops/desktops for about $300-400.

[TheBlackCat]

Does your computer have a CD-ROM and do you have access to a CD burner (either on that computer or a different one)?  If so, you can use a linux live cd to access the file, then copy them to another device.  You just put burn an image to a CD, pop it in the drive, then depending on your boot settings it should start up automatically.  You can then access the hard drive and copy the files wherever you want.  The livecd itself doesn't actually install anything on your hard drive, it a standalone operating system that runs entirely from the CD.  It doesn't leave anything behind when it is done besides the changes you explicitly make.

I recommend Parted Magic.  It is free, very small, light on resource usage, works on most computers, and has a good set of hard disk tools.  It is also compatible with both windows NTFS (what windows nt, 2000, xp, and later use) and fat/fat32 partitions (which windows 98, ME and earlier use).

So in this case you can connect the drive, put the disc into the computer you want to move the files to, then run the livecd.  It will give you some options when booting up, just go with the defaults (just hit "enter" when you see a prompt).  Once it boots, you will be in a graphical desktop not fundamentally dissimilar from windows.  there will be icons on the desktop for the various partitions it can see.  Double-click the drive you want to move the files from and the drive you want to move the file to, then just drag and drop.  I've done it even from drives windows cannot access.

If that doesn't work, then the hard drive likely is corrupted.  There are tools on the disc to recover damaged partitions, but lets not get into that unless you absolutely need it.

Depending on how much of the hard drive is used, you can even copy the files over to a new partition without deleting them.  This involves resizing the partition, creating a new one in the empty space, moving the files over, deleting the old partition, then resizing the new partition to fill the space.  This is not guaranteed to be 100% safe but I have done it dozens of times and never had it fail on me before.  It is better to just get the files off, though.

[Mop it up]

This CD drive does say it can write CDs and DVDs, but I haven't ever used it so I don't know if it works. I'd have to get some blank discs to find out. I might try that, but it sounds a bit complicated. There's nothing on the hard drive I need right away, so I might just wait until I get another computer.

You can get cheap nettops/desktops for about $300-400.

Or I can get them for $0. Even better!

[Caliban]

Just a hunch, but did you set it as the slave drive?

I don't know what that means. But, if it means anything, I replaced a different hard drive ( not C) because there were no open plugs.

See where it says jumper block on that image? On the back of your hard drive there should be a schematic as to how to position the jumper plugs so as to make your hard drive identified either as Master or Slave. The distinction exists so that there is no confusion on boot up because both hard drives are connected to the same IDE cable.

[Mop it up]

They're connected with different cables. Is that an issue?

EDIT: If it matters, it was the primary (C) drive of the computer from which it came. Since it would be a secondary drive in the computer I'm moving it to, do I have to reposition the jumper plugs like what you talked about? Though I don't even know what that means...

[TheBlackCat]

It isn't very complicated, at least not really any more complicated than moving files around within windows. 

There should be a 4x2 grid of pins.  There may be a small rectangular piece of plastic connecting two of those pins (it would be roughly 1/4 in by 1/8 in with the final dimension being variable).  There might also be a diagram showing various 4x2 grids of dots, each with (or without) a rectangle outlining two of the dots.  If there is such a diagram, you want to move (or remove) the rectangular piece of plastic so it is on the same pins as in "slave" diagram.  If there isn't a diagram, try removing the rectangular piece entirely.  If there isn't a rectangular piece or a diagram, or if removing the rectangular piece online, then you may have to search online for your hard drive model number.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Buy a USB external enclosure.
Anyone think that might work?

But honestly, just upgrade your OS.
Take the activation key from your old XP machine and use it on this current machine.

If you need a new computer, you can put one together that's decent for pretty cheap.

[TheBlackCat]

This CD drive does say it can write CDs and DVDs, but I haven't ever used it so I don't know if it works. I'd have to get some blank discs to find out. I might try that, but it sounds a bit complicated. There's nothing on the hard drive I need right away, so I might just wait until I get another computer.

It isn't very complicated, at least not any more complicated than moving files around within windows. 

They're connected with different cables. Is that an issue?

It shouldn't be, as long as windows 98 supports the connection type which I am not sure about.  There are probably 4 or 5 different connection types (although probably only 2 or 3 that you are likely to see in a desktop system).  If the connection is a ~3/4 in by 1/18 in rectangular piece of plastic with a slit in the middle I might be worried, that is SATA which may be too new for windows 98 (although I don't know for certain, this BIOS may take care of that so the OS doesn't have to worry about it).

EDIT: If it matters, it was the primary (C) drive of the computer from which it came. Since it would be a secondary drive in the computer I'm moving it to, do I have to reposition the jumper plugs like what you talked about? Though I don't even know what that means...

There should be a 4x2 grid of pins on the back of the drive.  There may be a small rectangular piece of plastic connecting two of those pins (it would be roughly 1/4 in by 1/8 in with the final dimension being variable).  On the drive's labelling there might also be a diagram showing various 4x2 grids of dots, each with (or without) a rectangle outlining two of the dots.  If there is such a diagram, you want to move (or remove) the rectangular piece of plastic so it is on the same pins as in "slave" diagram.  If there isn't a diagram, try removing the rectangular piece entirely.  If there isn't a rectangular piece or a diagram, or if removing the rectangular piece doesn't help, then you may have to search online for your hard drive model number.

[TheBlackCat]

Buy a USB external enclosure.
Anyone think that might work?

Only if the operating system can read the partition format.

If you need a new computer, you can put one together that's decent for pretty cheap.

For someone who doesn't know what a jumper configuration is I think building a computer is a bit much.

[Mop it up]

Okay. So it's set as a primary drive; are you saying that if I change the jumper configuration to make it a "slave" drive, the computer might recognize it?

For someone who doesn't know what a jumper configuration is I think building a computer is a bit much.

I've built several computers, including the one I'm using now, from parts that I got out of the various computers I've received over the years. Building a computer is fairly easy, you just put everything in where it fits.

[bustin98]

Most PCs of the day have two IDE channels. Each channel is connected by a bus and a ribbon. The ribbon is the long flat grey cable that connects to the devices. The bus is the long black or beige connector on the motherboard. Each IDE can have a primary device and a number of slaves. If you have two CDRoms (such as a CD Burner and a DVD drive), one is set as primary, the other set as slave. Same logic for harddrives. And you can mix and match. You can have a harddrive on the same channel as a cdrom.

Want to know if you have the drives set up correctly? Look at the setup of BIOS. Normally, when you see the black screen with the white wording, look for what enters setup. Could be F10, could be Delete. Could be F2. Once in the BIOS setup, look for IDE configuration, something along those lines. This will tell you what it sees as far as what is primary and what is secondary or slave. If it says [Not detected] but you have something plugged in, then you know you do not have the pins set correctly. I don't recommend playing with the pins right off the bat because there could be an auto-detect setting that works just as well.

The issue though is you have already said that the drive came from an XP machine, so more than likely it is formatted with NTFS and not FAT32. It is entirely possible that an XP drive can be configured with FAT32 but its not the default setting, someone would have to know to format it that way. And the only reason for formatting it with FAT32 is backwards compatibilty. FAT32 does not allow for security to be set on files, while NTFS has room for permissions.

Yay! A bunch of stuff you probably don't need to know or care about...

Anyway, I like the idea of the Linux cd burner, especially since its free. I like the idea of getting someone's old PC less, cause unless a full wipe is done on their drive before you start using it, you never know what trouble you are inviting.

BTW, while 98 cannot read XP, XP can read 98... just another tidbit if you were wondering.

[Mop it up]

So if I'm understanding this, I can't connect the hard drive to my Win98 machine. I guess I'll just have to wait until I get another computer.

Thank you for your responses Bustin88 and TheBlackCat.

[Mop it up]

Okay, now a different question...
Is it possible to recover data from a hard drive with corrupted sectors? I'm guessing the answer is "no" but I figured I'd ask anyway, in the off chance there's stuff to attempt.

Someone suggested this to me though it seems extreme:

http://lifehacker.com/5515337/save-a-failed-hard-drive-in-your-freezer-redux

Although I don't care if I destroy the hard drive in the process, as I've got plenty of others that actually work right.

There should be a 4x2 grid of pins on the back of the drive.  There may be a small rectangular piece of plastic connecting two of those pins (it would be roughly 1/4 in by 1/8 in with the final dimension being variable).  On the drive's labelling there might also be a diagram showing various 4x2 grids of dots, each with (or without) a rectangle outlining two of the dots.  If there is such a diagram, you want to move (or remove) the rectangular piece of plastic so it is on the same pins as in "slave" diagram.  If there isn't a diagram, try removing the rectangular piece entirely.  If there isn't a rectangular piece or a diagram, or if removing the rectangular piece doesn't help, then you may have to search online for your hard drive model number.

Thanks for this, I changed the plug as you said and now it is recognized in my WinXP machine. However, it looks like it is corrupted! But that's what I wanted to know. It's from another computer I had, a WinXP machine that was working great, much better than my current one, but then one day it wouldn't start up and got stuck on the Windows startup screen. I didn't think it was a virus, though it probably would be better if it were, since then I could've gotten my stuff...

[TheBlackCat]

Parted magic has excellent tools for recovering data from a corrupted partition.  The tool you want is called TestDisk.  There are windows versions available, but I would recommend against using them in case it is a virus.  There is also Scrounge NTFS,

What makes you think it isn't a virus?  Parted magic also has virus-scan capabilities, and since it is linux-based there is no risk of the virus spreading.  The tool is called ClamAV.  That means you can load the hard drive, recover the data, and scan it for viruses, all without putting any other systems at risk. 

If you were to do it within windows there is always the possibility that it will re-infect any computer you try to view the files on.  I know someone who had that happen to him, and he is the head of IT for a company.  The moment the operating system mounted the drive the virus infected the computer.

Actually, about a month back one of my co-workers was complaining that her computer was acting strange.  I checked and found out her virus-scan software hadn't update in 11 months.  I got really suspicious when not only would the software not update, I couldn't even manually access the websites for the anti-virus software she had installed in order to manually update.   

So I booted a Linux partition I had set up for a previous user of the computer, ran some virus scan software from there, and found the system not only had hundreds of viruses, but several rootkits.  A rootkit is a particularly vicious type of virus that alters the fundamental behavior of the operating system in in order to make itself invisible to the system, including virus scan software.  That makes it essentially impossible to detect from within the operating system, but it is easy to detect from another operating system not affected by the rootkit.  Once there is a rootkit, the operating system is pretty much beyond saving (or rather it is far more work to save it then to start over from scratch), so I copied the users' documents to the Linux partition, scanned them thoroughly for viruses, then tried to reinstall windows from scratch.  However, the windows XP install disk corrupted the hard drive's partition table.  Linux had no problem with it, but windows refused to install on the drive at all (this is not the first time this has happened, another guy I know has the same problem).  So I booted back into Linux, burnt the files to DVD, stuck a partition magic disk I had laying around in the drive, booted it up, created a new partition table, then installed windows just fine.  It was quite an ordeal though.

[Mop it up]

What makes you think it isn't a virus?

There are several reasons.

For starters, not only is it a seven-year-old hard drive, but it is a Maxtor brand which, from what I've read, is a brand with durability issues that's prone to corruption. Also, if this were some all-infecting virus, wouldn't it have spread to the other two hard drives that were in the computer? Both of them work without issue, one of which is in use in this computer and has been for some time. Lastly, this isn't the first time this has happened. The computer had stopped working once before, and so I gave it to someone who knows about this stuff to see what he could do. He said something about how some small part of Windows was installed on a bad sector and it was only a matter of time before it stopped functioning. He reformatted and reinstalled Windows, but it didn't take, so he gave it back to me and said it wasn't going to work. I tried it one more time before scrapping it, and it worked! He said that, simply put, due to the damage to the hard drive, it shouldn't have been working. I just passed it off as a miracle and thought nothing of it.

I guess it could be a virus as I've no idea of the extent of what they can do. But because of the reasons I stated, I think it's just plain ol' corruption. It happens.

[TheBlackCat]

Very well.  After what I have seen and experiences I have heard from others I personally wouldn't risk it, but it is up to you.

[Mop it up]

If I let horror stories stop me from doing things, I'd never leave the house.