Searching for boot record

Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
edited May 2005 in Hardware
I am having an issue with an hp computer. While trying to boot of the the HDD it is searching for the boot record from this device which is not being located. This drive worked fine up until I ran the CHKDSK on it and it found a few errors and repaired (or attempted to) the errors found. It hasn't been right since and I can't even reload windows or boot off of a disc. Anyone have any ideas what has caused this and how can I get this to boot back up? The memory has been tested as well as the rest of the hardware so I'm not sure how to proceed at this point. Thanks for any suggestions you guys have.

Comments

  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    Get the diagnostic test from the HD manufacturer and run it. If you need help finding and/or using it, just yell.

    Once we are sure the drive is physically OK we can move on to other issues. :)
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    I have run the diagnostic program from Maxtor's website. It runs for a moment then says there is no fat 32 file found (or something close to that). Then I can't get it to run anything beyond what it automatically runs on it's own. Another thing I forgot to mention, when the system tries to boot at start up and it goes through the motion of trying to find a boot record from all the active devices in the bios it leaves that screen and begins to run some diagnostic relating to the onboard lan device. This will continually run itself with each boot.

    Also, I have put this drive in my computer. It recognizes it in the device manager and says it is working properly but the drive doesn't show up when I open my computer. Typically I know it should be listed because I have done this on prior occassions but this one isn't showing up.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    Are you running the DOS version of Maxtor's program from a bootable floppy? You won't need any partition at all to test the drive physically.

    If the drive is OK, boot from the WinXP CD, go to the repair console, then run the following commands:

    Fixboot
    Fixmbr

    Good luck. :)
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    Yes prof, it is the DR-Dos version. I have tried using an XP cd to repair the boot issue but when I get to the point of trying to do the repair I am getting the message, that the particular partition is not accessable.

    Do I have to have the disc from hp (if one came with it at time of purchase)? Or can I use any Xp home disc?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    Are you using the repair console, or trying a repair install? The console is what you want for the two commands I mentioned before.

    If that doesn't work, try TestDisk.
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    prof, just completed the steps you suggested. When I go through the repair console and type command fixboot I get the message Fixboot can not find the system drive or the drive specified is not valid. The volume is labeled C and D (Fat32). I also tried changing the directory to D but still nothing. I'm guessing at this point this has a bad drive.
  • maximusbadmaximusbad The Burg
    edited May 2005
    Do you have another machine with XP on it you could make a boot disk from? If so make a boot disk and boot to it and then do a fdisk /mbr , that should fix the mbr and it should boot.
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    prof, I ran testdisk as suggested and it is not locating any file systems (fat32 or NTFS). t's like this drive doesn't exist.

    Maximus, Yes I have my computer. But what is the difference between trying to boot off of a windows cd or making a boot disk?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    Do you care about the data on the drive? If not, you could use Maxtor's tool to zero it out and start over.

    Is the drive physically identified in the bios? (I know you mentioned that it sees it in the other computer.) Did you try TestDisk while the drive was in the other machine?
    when the system tries to boot at start up and it goes through the motion of trying to find a boot record from all the active devices in the bios it leaves that screen and begins to run some diagnostic relating to the onboard lan device.
    That sounds like it's just trying to see if it can boot from the network, since it can't find a local drive to boot from.

    Good luck. :)
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    prof, the info on the drive is not important and yes it is physically identified in the bios. I'm not sure how to get maxtor's tool to do that.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    The full Low-Level Format (see the last paragraph of the attached file) will zero it out. Just make sure you truly don't need anything off the drive.
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    Thanks for all your help prof. I am not getting a menu when I try booting from the Maxtor diagnostic cd. it runs through a few tests and comes up with a comand line which I can't run anything from. What am I doing wrong?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    I take it you do not have a floppy drive.

    What's the command line prompt and what does it show when you type dir and then hit enter?
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    No floppy in my computer. Is the command dir what takes you to the menu? It is coming up in the A directory and waits for a command to be input.

    When the dir command is entered I get this:

    COMMAND COM
    DR DOS <DIR
    OAK <DIR
    NR <DIR
    WWBMU EXE
    README TXT
    AUTODOS7 BAT
    DCONFIG SYS

    8 FILES


    If a floppy is necessary I can make one from my laptop to use.
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    Got the diagnostic to run on the floppy. The program stated that there is drive failure and kicked out a code. I'm guessing the HDD is finished. Thanks for your time and help prof.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    Yeah... :(

    You can look the code up at Maxtor's website. Make sure you write it down for RMA purposes.

    Sorry to hear that the drive is toast; I hope you can get a replacement out of them.
  • Shadow2018Shadow2018 Northwest Missouri
    edited May 2005
    I couldn't find the diagnostic code explanation but as it turns out this drive is still under warranty for another 3 months or so. It couldn't have picked a better time to go...lol
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited May 2005
    Hey, that's cool. They're good about RMA stuff. :)

    I couldn't find a detailed list, but this page has some info on the code business.
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