What could cause harddrives to be unformattable / fdiskable?

[AncientPC]

This is across 4 computers and 5 harddrives with the same problem for a person I'm helping.

If he tries to fdisk a harddrive, it says that the harddrive is unable to be fdisked. If he continually tries to fdisk the drive, it says, "Drive can not be found."

I thought it might be a bus or IDE cable problem, but it's happened across 4 computers and 5 harddrives.

Any suggestions?

 

[phonemonkey]

Are they all the same make/model of HD's.

Also, have any of them behaved "abnormally" lately? (lock ups, strange noises, etc)

 

[GeishasRevenge]

Sometimes using Linux/FreeBSD, causes Fdisk to not see the partitions. It might report that a logical DOS drive exists when you try to delete extended partition, but will list no logical partitions under the "delete logical DOS drive" menu option. I have run into this problem, and found this web page with a nifty DOS script. I hope this helps.

 

[AncientPC]

They're different models of hdd. The previous OS installed on all of them are Win98.

The only symptom the user claims is him unable to format floppy disks (gives an "Disk is not formattable" error) before hdd does the same thing.

 

[woodie1]

Is he using the same floppy in all the rigs? Could it be bad?

 

[AncientPC]

No, he's told me he's tried multiple floppies.

 

[AtomicDude512]

Originally posted by: GeishasRevenge
Sometimes using Linux/FreeBSD, causes Fdisk to not see the partitions. It might report that a logical DOS drive exists when you try to delete extended partition, but will list no logical partitions under the "delete logical DOS drive" menu option. I have run into this problem, and found this web page with a nifty DOS script. I hope this helps.

I had this problem! It took me two days to fix! :| And im not really sure what I did. But now I have dumped linux permanently.

 

[thorin]

Have you checked all the system with up-to-date Anti-Virus software?

Thorin

 

[DaTT]

Will it scandisk?

Also, go to each of the hdd manufacturer's website and d/l their software that does a thorough check on the drive. Each manufacturer should have a small program that will determine if the hdd's are unfixable, fixable, or fine. It will check hardware components of the drives. That's where I would start..

 

[thorin]

You may want to check this Utility out.

Thorin