Very weird and hard to solve HDD problem

[Gomce]

Little history, the HDD is 6,4gb Fujitsy ata33 drive.
Everything was perfect with it, it ran WinME and it had a broken instalation of Win2k which I tryed to avoid at every boot (Dual boot option remained and I had to chose WinMe after every restart)
Ok,
Now, I tryed to install Win2k again on the disk, the same error: Corrupted disk or something... nevermind, the disk was perfect.
I installed Norton SystemWorks, they did a check and 1 second after starting the HDD scan they've found an error in the file "bootlog.prv"
I chose to fix the error without making a backup (kill me for this)
After the fixing the disk restarted because that is some major error that requires restart.
Ok, when it got to the point of "Verifying DMI pool data" the disk halted. nothing, pure halt, stop. no sounds no nothing.
I took the disk out, I took it to my second main PC (the disk is from my other PC), I booted with a floppy disk (the PC with the disk doesnt have a floppy drive) and I did 2 formats on the C:\
A ok so far
with Fdisk I deleted the only active partition (Prymary DOS, the one that uses the whole disk space)
and once deleted I made another Partition, also prymary DOS.
Restarted the PC, and tryed to format it (after making a partition u have to format the disk) and nothing, this error returned "Invalid media trying to read drive C"
I have deleted and made the partition 2-3 times, and nothing, I cant format the drive.
On this PC I cant access the drive, it is being shown but it is not accessable...
The disk is being shown in the BIOS also, u can make/delete partitions with FDISK but nothing else...
( Weird
I am not newbie, I have done this many times but noting like this happned, that Norton action on fixing the bad "bootlog.prv" messed me badly
I tryed doing fdisk /mbr but nothing
I tryed C:\> fdisk still the " Invalid media type trying to read drive"
Same when trying from A:\> fdisk
you see, you can go to C:\ but u cant format it, u cant copy files on it nothing, except making/deleting partitions

Please help with this weird problem, and very sorry for the long post, but I had to elaborate the problem.

 

[dbwillis]

There wasnt any drive overlay software on it, was there?

maybe try to fdisk /mbr the disk too

 

[Paulson]

do you have a windows 98 disk by any chance?

After you create a partition, you can't format the drive in dos for some stupid reason (wont work, get the same error you do)

If you have a win98se cd and start up disk, start up the computer, and begin to run the setup, the setup will ask if you want to format drive c... let it format, then you can go about installing...

(do this from dos though)

 

[Gomce]

"I tryed doing fdisk /mbr but nothing
I tryed C:\> fdisk still the " Invalid media type trying to read drive" "

nope, nothing, just WinMe and unsucessful install of Win2k that seem to messed up bootlog.prv

(((

 

[Gomce]

Paulson I tried with bootable Win2k Cd,
when it gets to Testing system or Checking your hardware...the first step u know, it halts
nothing it cant check the disk so it halts, same thing with Win98

 

[Gomce]

I need something that will write to the first boot sector, I think that there the things are f*cked up...
This isnt simple problem guys

 

[Paulson]

you mean it halts from dos too?

hmmmmmmm, i had this problem once, let me see if I can think of how you fix it...

sorry, I thought the win98 thing would work..

 

[Gomce]

I dont think the disk is dead..
Just it's not accessable
btw I dont have Win98 Se with me, just Win98

but bootable Win2k should've fix it..
what now?
nobody else is interested to answer it seems

 

[Bozo Galora]

IBM has a utility that writes zeros to first 128 sectors, maybe fukitsu has one also.

you can use directory snoop to do it directly, but its kinda complicated

 

[TheCandyman]

You could try a low lovel format through the bios... I have had similar problems and that solved it for me.

My $0.02

 

[Bozo Galora]

Bootlog Failures

The bootlog.txt file is a copy of the original installation (assuming you haven't exercised the procedure below), and
has a copy of itself found in the bootlog.prv (previous) file. If you still would like to save it for reference, rename it
bootlog.orig if you like. Then proceed as follows.

To make a new bootlog file to be analyzed, hit F8 (or CTRL) at bootup and select option 2. Logged (\BOOTLOG.TXT).

The following is a summary of the relevant Microsoft technical note:

When you review the BOOTLOG.TXT file in the root folder on your hard disk, you may see the following lines even
though your computer seems to function properly:

LoadFailed = dsound.vxd
LoadFailed = ebios
LoadFailed = ndis2sup.vxd
LoadFailed = vpowerd
LoadFailed = vserver.vxd
LoadFailed = vshare
InitCompleteFailed = SDVXD

NOTE: The following lines may appear only in the Windows 98 BOOTLOG.TXT file:

SysCritInitFailed = JAVASUP
DeviceInitFailed = MTRR

These load failures do not necessarily mean that there is a problem. It is common for some, if not all, of these to fail,
depending on your system configuration.

DSOUND

Many sound drivers are DirectSound enabled. DirectSound is part of Microsoft DirectX, a set of libraries used by most
newer Windows-based games. When a DirectSound-enabled sound driver is loaded, it attempts to register with the
DirectSound library so that games can use it. If no DirectX-based games are installed on your computer, the
DirectSound library fails to load. This is normal.

EBIOS

The extended BIOS driver did not find an extended BIOS, so it does not load.

NDIS2SUP.VXD

The NDIS 2 support driver did not find any NDIS 2 drivers to support, so it does not load.

VPOWERD

The Advanced Power Management (APM) driver determined that your computer does not support APM, so it does not
load, or APM support may be disabled. To determine if you have inadvertently disabled APM in Device Manager,
follow these steps:

1.In Control Panel, double-click System.
2.Click the Device Manager tab.
3.Double-click the System Devices branch to expand it.
4.Double-click the Advanced Power Management Support branch. (If this branch does not exist, your computer
does not support APM.)
5.Click the Settings tab.
6.Verify that the Enable Power Management Support check box is selected.

VSERVER.VXD

Vserver.vxd does not load statically so that it can save memory by loading later in the boot process only if it is
needed. For example, Vserver.vxd might not be needed when you start a laptop computer while it is out of its docking
station.

VSHARE

If you examine the Bootlog.txt file, you will notice that VSHARE loaded successfully earlier in the boot process. The
second copy of VSHARE detects that VSHARE is already loaded and does not load.

FONT FAILURES

When Font Manager searches the hard disk for fonts, it may find shortcuts in the fonts folder (C:\WINDOWS\FONTS),
which point to font files (e.g., TTF files) which are in the fonts folder already. The solution is to remove those font
shortcuts from the fonts folder.

INITCOMPLETEFAILED=SDVXD

Windows 95/98 automatically loads a miniature disk cache to increase the speed of the boot process. When the boot
process is complete, the miniature disk cache is unloaded from memory. When it is unloaded, the above line is
added to the Bootlog.txt file to indicate that the miniature disk cache has been removed from memory.

This is normal behavior.

SYSCRITINITFAILED=JAVASUP

The Java Support driver is not needed on your computer, so it did not load. Java is a programming language used on
the World Wide Web (WWW). Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 3.0 and later include a Java subsystem.

DEVICEINITFAILED=MTRR

Memory Type Range Registers (MTRR) is a .vxd file responsible for manipulating memory ranges. This file is loaded
with DirectX 5.0, however, none of the DirectX core components use the service provided by MTRR. However,
NTKERN and some display drivers do use the service provided by MTRR to change memory ranges.

Note: See the companion utility program Bootlog Analyzer on the download page.

http://surecool.com/bootlog.htm

 

[Gomce]

I had success with fdisk /mbr
(first time I tried this it corrupted the bootable floppy)
after that I made another floppy bootable, and fdisk /mbr let me to format the C:

Installing WIN 2k I had problems
everything was smooth untill the point it started the installation (after choosing the NTFS or continu with the current intact system option, there was an error: CANT CREATE /WINNT folder
and deleted the format of the disk

again I had to fdisk /mbr with the boot floppy
now it seems I have to install that bloody recource beast WinME