Hard disk problem

Hello,
Here is a strange story :
I am on win98. From the noise I heard, it was as if the power saving always
wanted to stop the hard disk, but then the hard disk fighted to work again.
I could use my comp almost normaly, except that sometimes there was some
"discontinuity" in the software working, so I lost some speed.
The next day, when I switched my comp on, the boot record on C was not found
anymore.
The only thing I could do to start the comp, was to use a win98 disk in the
a: drive
It detected that C does not contain any valid FAT or FAT32 partition.
Win 98 advised me to run FDISK, but I am afraid it will delete all data on
my disk.
What do you think I should do ? do you think it may be a virus, or a hard
disk crash ?
Thanks in advance for all kind of information or usefull web site on the
subject.

Remark : apparently the C: drive is not recognised anymore

Bruno

"Bruno Lefebvre" <bru.lefebvre@wanadoo.fr> wrote:

> Here is a strange story :

Not strange at all, hard drives fail all the time.

> I am on win98. From the noise I heard, it was as if the power saving always
> wanted to stop the hard disk, but then the hard disk fighted to work again.
> I could use my comp almost normaly, except that sometimes there was some
> "discontinuity" in the software working, so I lost some speed.
> The next day, when I switched my comp on, the boot record on C was not found
> anymore.
> The only thing I could do to start the comp, was to use a win98 disk in the
> a: drive
> It detected that C does not contain any valid FAT or FAT32 partition.
> Win 98 advised me to run FDISK, but I am afraid it will delete all data on
> my disk.
> What do you think I should do ? do you think it may be a virus, or a hard
> disk crash ?
> Thanks in advance for all kind of information or usefull web site on the
> subject.
>
> Remark : apparently the C: drive is not recognised anymore

Seems that your hard drive is either dead, or about to dying.

If the data on that drive is important, then the best approach would be to clone
it, if still possible (the *physical* drive is still recognized in the BIOS).

For cloning software, look for CloneDisk at http://invircible.com/resq.php. You
can download CloneDisk to test (free) if the drive is still accessible for
cloning. Do it short, as your drive may have just enough breath for a single
cloning run. You need to license CloneDisk ($25) for the actual cloning.

No virus is involved.

Good luck, Zvi
--
NetZ Computing Ltd. ISRAEL http://invircible.com support@resq.co.il
InVircible Virus Defense Solutions, ResQ and Data Recovery Utilities
E-mail sent in reply to this post will not be considered private and
will be answered in the newsgroup. Top posting is not appreciated!

On that special day, Bruno Lefebvre, (bru.lefebvre@wanadoo.fr) said...

> It detected that C does not contain any valid FAT or FAT32 partition.
> Win 98 advised me to run FDISK, but I am afraid it will delete all data on
> my disk.

Yes, it would. Better use a partition manager (Ranish comes to mind, it
is free, but only for the hardware savvy).

> What do you think I should do ? do you think it may be a virus, or a hard
> disk crash ?

I am afraid that it is the latter. Viruses render hard disks unusable by
overwriting (at least) the first sectors, but you write:

> Remark : apparently the C: drive is not recognised anymore

Which makes the case appear to be a hard disk failure.

What to do: Go into the BIOS at computer start up (normally, by hitting
the Del key while the RAm is counted), and try to detect your harddrive
by the auto detect feature therein (sorry that I cannot be more
specific, but there are three main layouts for this task, from AMI,
AWARE and Phoenix respectively, and dozens if not hundreds of design
subsets, created by the mainboard manufacturers on a per model basis).

If your hard disk is found again, and maybe works for a certain period
of time, use that time to safe all your files, but don't care for the
programs.

Programs can be re-installed, but your documents cannot be recreated.
they are the "women and children" on your computer.

Then get another hard disk, re-install Windows 98 (ouch, does Microsoft
still provide the necessary updates? I am afraid, not), and you
programs.

If the broken hard disk leaves enough time to copy down all contents,
you might attach the new hard disk as second drive, fdisk it with a
primary partition, transfer the contents of the old hard disk to the new
one, remove the old one, set the jumpers of the new one to "Master",
start the computer with a start disk (www.bootdisk.com is great for
that), open fdisk, set the partition on the new hard disk to "active"
(Win98 will do this only on master disks), and reboot. Your computer
should then work again.

Hope that helps. Regards,


Gabriele Neukam

Gabriele.Neukam@t-online.de


--
Ah, Information. A good, too valuable theses days, to give it away, just
so, at no cost.

In news:bd4j71$4v6$1@news-reader1.wanadoo.fr,
Bruno Lefebvre <bru.lefebvre@wanadoo.fr> typed:

Hello Bruno,

Where are you from in France ?

You can reply to the address below.

--

Jean-Luc Cavey
Paris, France
E-Mail : JLCavey@alussinan.org

Pourquoi tant d'étoiles pour si peu de trèfles à qua tre feuilles ?
wrote:

> Where are you from in France ?

NNTP-Posting-Host: alille-207-1-3-231.w81-48.abo.wanadoo.fr

:-)

In news:bd4os0$oodjn$1@ID-75150.news.dfncis.de,
Frederic Bonroy <yorbon@yahoo.fr> typed:
> Pourquoi tant d'étoiles pour si peu de trèfles à qua tre feuilles ?
> wrote:
>
>> Where are you from in France ?
>
> NNTP-Posting-Host: alille-207-1-3-231.w81-48.abo.wanadoo.fr
>

Lille ? Ca fait un peu loin ça...

--

Jean-Luc Cavey
Paris, France
E-Mail : JLCavey@alussinan.org

Pourquoi tant d'étoiles pour si peu de trèfles à qua tre feuilles ?
wrote:

> Lille ? Ca fait un peu loin ça...

Lille ou les environs. Je ne sais pas comment c'est organisé chez
Wanadoo.

In news:bd4pau$pa2sp$1@ID-75150.news.dfncis.de,
Frederic Bonroy <yorbon@yahoo.fr> typed:
> Pourquoi tant d'étoiles pour si peu de trèfles à qua tre feuilles ?
> wrote:
>
>> Lille ? Ca fait un peu loin ça...
>
> Lille ou les environs. Je ne sais pas comment c'est organisé chez
> Wanadoo.

Certes mais Paris c'est quand même pas les environs de Lille et Lycée de
Versailles (sorry, untranslatable).

--

Jean-Luc Cavey
Paris, France
E-Mail : JLCavey@alussinan.org

On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 18:38:38 +0200, Gabriele Neukam
<Gabriele.Neukam@t-online.de> wrote:

>Then get another hard disk, re-install Windows 98 (ouch, does Microsoft
>still provide the necessary updates? I am afraid, not), and you
>programs.

Art had a link to all the patches,
but here's one for starters:
http://tinyurl.com/eyug

Bart

In news:3ef6f8ad.1963228@bart.spawar.mil,
Bart Bailey <bartman@nethere.net> typed:
> On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 18:38:38 +0200, Gabriele Neukam
> <Gabriele.Neukam@t-online.de> wrote:
>
>> Then get another hard disk, re-install Windows 98 (ouch, does
>> Microsoft still provide the necessary updates? I am afraid, not),
>> and you programs.
>
> Art had a link to all the patches,
> but here's one for starters:
> http://tinyurl.com/eyug
>
> Bart

NON !!!!!!

Passe-moi un coup de fil avant de planter tout le bouzin !

Je t'envoie mes coordonnées par mail privé !

--

Jean-Luc Cavey
Paris, France
E-Mail : JLCavey@alussinan.org