Help! Can't find the drives

Hi Folks,
I have an old Compaq puter which is supposed to have 8 gigs. My daughter had it for a month and then it gave up. Here's the prob. It originally had Windows XP Home on it. Well all you can do now is in dos. I'm not completely computer illiterate, but close to it. I can follow directions though. I've gotten into the bios and found the c drive. It has nothing on it and is 7.56 mb, that's right, mb of space. There is a virtual drive d: that has about 14 files on it and thats it. I can access the floppy and cd drive from dos command, but, I was thinking there must be a hidden drive somewhere with other stuff on it. Otherwise, where is the 8 gigs.
I'd like to fix it enough so my granddaughter can use it to chat online. She can use the other puter for downloading tunes and stuff. Is there anyway to fix it? I'll try my damndest if there is. Can you help me?
B

 

Hi blkittygirl
What may have happened is that the previous user has deleted the "Primary DOS partition"
If you can get to the DOS prompt, type in 'fdisk' and choose "creat primary DOS partition"... Hopefully you should be able to choose the missing 8 gigabytes.
you can then format this and install windows on it.

 

Thanks, I'll give it a try right now! I'll let you know what happens.
B

 

Nope. I knew that would just be too easy.lol In the Bios it mentions a ram virtual disk d. What is that?

 

The screen in bios shows this:

Current fixed disk drive: 1
Partition Status Type Volume Label Megabytes System Usage
1 NTFS 12883 100%
C: 2 A PRI DOS 7 FAT 12

Total Disk Space is 12890 MB (1 MB = 104856 Bytes)
Enter the number of the partition you want to make active [ ]

There is no drive showing the 8 missing gigs. Help me!
B

 

I hope the below message makes some sense. It didn't stay as typed.
Partition 1 is Type-ntfs with 12883 mb and 100% usage.

Partition C:2 is Status A Type Pri Dos with 7 mb and system fat 12 with o% usage.
B

 

"Nope. I knew that would just be too easy.lol In the Bios it mentions a ram virtual disk d. What is that?"

It sounds like you are booting from your floppy drive. Whenever you do that, it creates a virtual disk and puts files on it like fdisk.exe, format.exe, etc. A virtual disk is just RAM that is allocated to be used in the same way a hard drive is. However, the files are lost when the computer is powered down or rebooted since the data is only held in memory.

From your fdisk printout, it looks like the hard drive is partitioned to 13Gb. Are there 2 hard drives in the system? Or only the 8Gb drive?

You will not be able to see the data on the hard drive from DOS since it is an NTFS drive. If you want to see what is on it to make sure your data is still there, you'll need an NTFS boot disk/CD.

Here is a link to a bootable CD that has a lot of great tools, one of which is an NTFS boot image.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4019.html

 

For some reason I was thinking that UBCD had an NTFS utility on it, but I don't see it. I'll see if I can find another one.

 

Hey Wyatt where did you see 13 gigs. I couldn't find where it said that. I've been over it many times. As far as I know there are 8 gigs on it. I just can't find or access them. It's really hard working from dos too. Some of the recovery programs you can download only work from windows, so I'm screwed there.
B

 

"1 NTFS 12883 100%"

That is basically telling you that there is an NTFS partition of 12883 Mb.

 

OMG! I feel so stupid! If that's the case, I've tried to access that and couldn't get into it. Why?
B

 

First off, is there a floppy disk in the drive?

 

Yup! I needed it to get to the dos prompt.
B

 

Well, what happens, exactly, when you try to boot up without the boot disk in the floppy drive?

 

I get: NTLDR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

 

Here is a Microsoft article explaining what to do:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=318728

If you need help with any of it, just ask...

 

Well, I tried all the stuff in the atricle. Nothing! How frustrating. I just downloaded the bcupdate2.exe fix to try. Have to grab a coffee first though.

 

Here is another thread with quite a few links and good information...

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=82366&highlight=ntldr+missing

 

Thanks Wyatt, but I tried those things last night....all night! I'm going to keep trying till I get it though.

 

The first thing I would do is try to find out more about the hard drive. The options I suggest are

1. If you know what make of HD you have, download a disk utility from the manufacturers website. There should be instructions to create a floppy disk to boot up your machine and run the utility. This should be much easier to work with than DOS / FDISK.

2. Download a 3rd party disk management utility that runs in DOS. I have used BootIt Next Generation, which you can use on a 30 day free trial. It has a mouse driven interface. I know others are available but I have no experience of them so can't advise on how good they are.
For BootIt NG go to http://www.terabyteunlimited.com
In the Downloads list click 'BootIt Next Generation'.
After downloading the zip file extract the files.
Find the 'BOOTITNG' shortcut file and double click to run.
Follow instructions to create the boot floppy.
Put this boot floppy in your Compaq and reboot.
At the first screen select 'Cancel' i.e. don't install the program. Then click 'OK'
Click 'Partition work' and you should see the Hard Drives and how they are partitioned and the file system. It will also list unpartitioned areas of the HD as 'Free space'.
For each partition, Click on 'Properties' then 'Details' to see how much of each partition has been used.

3. It might be possible to remove your HD from the Compaq and connect it to your other computer. If you try make sure you unplug the PC and ground yourself to avoid static damage to the components. It could be as easy as plugging the HD into the spare connectors on your other computer. However you may need to change the Jumper Settings on your HD for it to be recognized so don't attempt it if you don't know what all that is about. If it works you can save any data you want to keep and use 'Disk Management' in Windows to see disk information.

When you know more about the hard drive you can then decide what to do next to rescue the PC.

Hope this is useful.

 

Hi Europa,
Been away a few days. Just got your answer now. I'm going to go through it step by step and I'll let you know what happens. Question though. The puter is a Compaq Presario 7469. Would that tell what the hard drive is? I'm not a computer whiz here, just muddlin' along if you know what I mean.
B

 

Hi blkittygirl

Unfortunately not but look here for the basic spec of your PC

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?dlc=en&lc=en&cc=us&product=94485

From your previous posts it looks like your PC was upgraded from the basic 8GB or someone put in a 13GB Hd before you got it. Another way to find the HD maker is from within the BIOS. You said you'd got into the BIOS before? All BIOS are different but it should be fairly obvious where to look. On one of the menus there should be a list of IDE conections like

Primary Master
Primary Slave
Secondary Master
Secondary Slave

When you select each of these it will show you what is connected and all the details of the device. HDs are usually connected to Primary Master (first HD) and Slave (second HD if present).

When you exit the BIOS make sure to exit without saving changes.

If you can't find out the maker this way, don't worry. When you run BootIt NG as per my previous post it will show you all the details.

Good luck. Let me know how you get on.

 

Hey Europa,
I first downloaded and tried out the BOOTIT NG. Interesting but not any help yet. I checked the bios for IDE Devices and this is what it said:

IDE Drive Translation Enable
Enhanced IDE Transfer Enable
Ultra 33/66 Enable
Primary IDE Controller Enable
Secondary IDE Controller Enable

Is this what you were talking about? It doesn't mean much to me yet.
B

 

Ok, so you started up BootIt NG and clicked on Partition Work. What did you see? Top left of the dialogue box (Work with Partitions) should be something like

HD 0
HD 1 (if you have a second hard drive)
CD 0

Select HD 0 and in the main part of the dialogue box there should be a list of partitions. You may only have one. What are the details? Something like:

(partition name) Partition 13000MB HPFS/NTFS

Click once on a partition to select it, click Properties, to see more information. Click Details to see the amount of Used/Free space. What have you got here?

Select HD 1 and you get the same for the second HD if present.

Let me know what you found for all partitions/drives.

 

Hey Europa:
Did what you asked and here are my findings:

HD 0 C Drive Partition 12883 MB HPFS/NTFS

File System 7/7h: HPFS/NTFS
Size: 12883 MB

LBA Information:
Start:63
End:26384399

Additional Information:
Bootable NTFS
Cluster size 4096 byte(s)
This partition may not boot WinNT Details: Free: 12450 MB
Used: 433 MB


No Name-1 Partition 7MB FAT 16
File System:14/Eh: FAT-16
Size 7MB

LBA Information Details: Free 7 MB
Start:26384400 Used 1 MB
End: 26399519

Additional Information:
Bootable FAT12 Label: No Name
Cluster size 4096 byte(s)
This partition is not accessible by DOS
This partition will not boot DOS, WinNT or OS/2
This partition contains BootIt NG

 

Hi blkittygirl,

I think we are getting somewhere!

You have one 13GB hard drive (as we thought).

The main partition is formatted with the NTFS file system as used by Windows XP.

Here’s the key item:

Only 433MB have been used. That means there is no way Windows XP is currently installed. The operating system files of XP take up at least 2GB. There is no point trying any Windows repairs.

These are the details of a second partition on your hard drive which was created by BootIt NG, which you have just installed on your HD. This should not be a problem. It only uses 8MB and may be useful. If it gets in the way it can be uninstalled anytime. In any case you should uninstall at the end of the 30 day trial period.


Next questions:

1. Do you have the Windows XP CD that was originally used to set up this PC?

2. Do you want to save any of the data within the 433MB on the disk?

 

Europa:
I'm afraid I don't have that CD because my daughters ex husband has it and he is long gone. Also the data is inconsequential at this point, so we won't worry about that. Before you ask, I don't have a disk either. It was already on my computer when purchased. God I hope you can solve this for me!
Thanks in advance, no matter how far we get!
B

 

I'm afraid things don't look good. If Windows XP has somehow got wiped the only way back is to reinstall it, which you can't do without the original CD.

I'd just like to double check the information here because I see no other solution.

BootIt NG definitely showed only 433MB used?
In the top left of the 'Work with Partitions' dialogue box there was no HD 1 which you could click on?

I’m a bit confused. Windows XP wouldn't just disappear off the disk. Someone would have had to reformat the disk which you can't just do by mistake.

 

I double checked the information and yes BootIt showed only 433MB used. No HD 1 either. The only thing that could have happened is if the guy who had been living with my daughter messed with it and that's what started it in the first place. She doesn't know anything (even less than me if you can believe that) about puters and she couldn't really say if he did or didn't. Just that it stopped working period. Is that formatting thing something that's easy to do? Could I somehow get the info from my computer to her computer? I don't know what to say now.
B

 

I don't think there is much you can do about this problem. Windows XP operating system files take up at least 2GB so there can't be a complete installation contained within the 433MB showing on the disk. You need an operating system to do anything with the PC.

You can't copy stuff from your own computer. Even if it was legal it wouldn't work. Windows XP only works on the PC where it was installed.

You could buy another copy of XP but the cost is about half as much as a brand new PC. And the Compaq is right on the minimum spec for running XP so its not worth it.

There is a utility you can download which will show you a list of the files on your PC. See http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm
It can also list out deleted files.

If you want to use this I can take you through the steps.

Basically, formatting wipes everything off the partition. It's fairly easy to do from DOS or other utility programs. It can be done from within XP except XP will prevent you formatting the partition where it is installed (C.

 

Hey Europa,
Well I guess that's that then. I thank you for all the help and I'll try to find an old compaq recovery disk set somewhere. Maybe a copy of windows me or something would work. Anyway, thank you very much for all your help.
B

 

You're welcome.