fdisk problems

[chevy55s]

I am not new to doing this but have never ran into this before. After inserting the win98 startup disk the computer will get to the Arompt > But when you type in Fdisk it says there are (no fixed disks.. if you press to continue the next screen tell you to create an MS-DOS boot partition .
any help would be welcomed. Thanks Vinnie
chevy55s@optonline.net

[edfair]

You probably have something messed up in the drive cabling or the CMOS isn't set correctly.
Can you see the drive as it is cold booting?
Or can you autodetect it?

[morriswindgate]

Is this a new hard disk or is it one from another computer that had the NTFS file system on it?

[chevy55s]

this is the hard drive that came with the computer . it reads the hd but it says there is no fixed disk . I checked the cmos everything seem to be the way it is supposed to be .

[morriswindgate]

Since I am to lazy to write this I will just copy/Paste. Also what OS are you planning on using?



REFERENCE NUMBER: CH000340
No fixed disk present:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Issue:

No fixed disk present

Cause:

This issue can be caused by any of the following possibilities:

Hard disk drive not connected properly
Jumpers not set properly
CMOS not setup properly
Hardware is bad
Solution:

Hard disk drive not connected properly

If the computer has been recently moved or serviced it is possible that the cables for the hard disk are not connected properly causing this error. Verify that the hard disk drive cables are connected and connected properly to the hard drive and the motherboard.

Jumpers not set properly

If a new IDE device has been recently added to the computer and the jumpers are not set properly it is possible that this issue could occur as the computer cannot boot properly with the jumpers not set properly. Verify that the jumpers on the hard drive or other IDE devices are set properly to Master or Slave.

CMOS not setup properly

Today most computers will auto detect the hard drive in CMOS, however some computers may need for the hard drive to be defined in CMOS. If a hard drive is not defined in CMOS this issue will occur.

If CMOS has the availability for Auto Detect, CMOS values should not need to be entered.

Additional information on how to enter CMOS can be found on our CMOS page.
Listing of most hard drive CMOS settings can be found on our Hard Drive Specification page.

Hardware is bad

If all of the above have been checked and the issue persists it is likely that the computer may have bad hardware. The following are possible bad hardware possibilities, it is recommended if they are replaced to be replaced in the following order:

IDE Cable
Hard Drive
Motherboard

[GaryRouth]

. . . just to rule out a bad IDE slot, in addition to the above, you can try slaving the drive in another PC - and see if it is recognized there. . .