Interesting Hard disk fault!

[Wesleyrpg]

i have a very unusual problem with a IBM Travelstar 20GN, it is not seen by any bios/dos, but is detected fine by windows xp.

I can read/write to the drive just fine when in windows, but for some reason the drive has lost its bootability, and the auto detection in any bios doesnt work on this drive anymore. i have also tried this drive on a desktop machine where it does exactly the same thing.

I don't understand why at a DOS level the drive isn't seen (hence it isn't bootable), and yet the drive works just fine in windows. I am assuming that the bios on the drive is partially damaged or corrupt.

i have tried the IBM/Hitachi DFT utilities disk, and the drive comes up with no errors, yet i can tell there is something wrong.

I really need this drive to be bootable, do you guys have any suggestions on how to get this drive bootable again, apart from replacing the HDD board?

thanks for your time

Adam

 

[Zepper]

How are you using it - in a laptop or a desktop or in an external enclosure? If it is in an external USB enclosure, the mobo BIOS itself has to have the "boot from USB" feature (and has to be set in the boot sequence, of course) or you are SOL.
. When Windows loads, it takes over USB support from the BIOS, so the drive obviously works within Windows.
. Remeber this little truism: Every PC can boot from some kind of floppy - many PCs can boot from a CD - few PCs can boot from USB - (someone jump in and fill the sequence for FW - I haven't heard that it's bootable in Wintel PCs)...
. DOS by itself generally can't deal with USB at all - kbd/mouse/drives etc. have to be handled by the BIOS.
...bh.

Where's the :sun: ?

 

[Wesleyrpg]

i've tried the hard disk in a laptop, and also tried hooking up via a 3.5 to 2.5 convertor on several desktop machines. I dont have a USB convertor.

this drive has previously worked on the desktop machine, that i use as my primary machine, it's VERY unusual how all of a sudden my BIOS won't reconise it, yet windows sees it just fine.

Any other ideas why at a DOS/BIOS level the drive isn't seen/bootable?

 

[Zepper]

Now that is a puzzler. Have you looked at the contacts in the connector on the drive with a magnifier to see if any of the pins are damaged/missing.?.. The same with all the connections? And how old is the desktop machine we're talking about? Older ones can't deal with drives that large...

...bh.

Where's the :sun: ?

 

[Wesleyrpg]

the desktop machine and laptop machine will easily take the 10Gig drive that im trying to get working, (the drive has previously worked in this desktop machine) i totally agree with you about it being puzzling.....i can't understand why windows xp will allow me to read and write to the drive as if theres nothing wrong when bios and dos can't see it.

just looked at drive, no obvious signs of bent/missing pins.

i'd say its a corrupt bios on the drive. what do you think?

 

[VirtualLarry]

First of all, HDs themselves don't have a "BIOS", per-se, although they do have firmware. If the firmware was somehow corrupted, I don't think that the drive would operate nor identify properly thought, so I don't think that's the problem here.

I actually think that possibly, the partition-type code in the MBR got changed somehow, but XP can still see the filesystem type from reading the filesystem boot record, so that it will still mount the filesystem. However, DOS requires the partition-type code to be accurate, before it will attempt to mount any filesystem.

So, to attempt to prove/disprove that hypothesis, I need more data. How was the drive partitioned/formatted? What do you see, when you open Disk Management, for that drive? What filesystem type is listed when you right-click the drive in Windows Explorer, and select "Properties..."?

I have a feeling that it is formatted as FAT32, but the MBR has a partition-type code for a FAT16 partition. I've seen this happen before, but only during the partitioning/formatting process; I've never seen it happen spontainously after the system has been in operation.

On second though, the issue about the BIOS HD auto-detection not functioning is troubling though. That doesn't make sense.

Regardless, have you tried simply backing up all of the data on the HD, and then using the IBM DFT utilities to "erase disk", and then attempting to re-partition/re-format it, and then possibly restore the backup?

 

[Abhi]

I think we have a similar problem....

I solved mine.

PM me and i think i might be able to help u...

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=1348269&highlight_key=y