HDD lost and found, but not recognized

Archived from groups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage (More info?)

"Martin" <marty123@optonline.net> wrote in message news:2Nibd.10438$HX6.6904551@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net
> A couple of weeks ago I tried to make the periodic backup image of my
> primary drive C using Drive Image 5, But DI-5 locked up with a message
> saying the it couldn't write to the mbr because it was protected, the first
> time that had happened. I ran the utility IVINIT and fixed that problem,
> but immediately ran into another one.

> The removable drive that I used to store the images and other backups
> disappeared from My Computer as well as from the Explorer list.
> It still showed up in the bios setup.

So you lost the MBR or the partition bootsector.

> I fixed that by identifying it as a removable drive in its Properties and
> it was listed again.

Because it was now like a big floppy drive. Fixed disk drives that aren't
partitioned don't show up in Explorer/MyComputer. Fixed disk drives
too can be made to show up by identifying them as a removable drive.

> But then when I tried to see if the older images and files were still there
> and possibly copy them to the active disk I got the message the drive was
> not formatted!

Very likely because you lost the MBR or the partition bootsector. Remo-
vable disk drives are allowed to be formatted without being partitioned.

>
> I'm using Win98. Would anyone have a clue as to what is happening and what
> I might do about it to get it back to normal?

See posts by Svend Olaf Mikkelsen or Zvi Netiv.

>
> Thanks, Marty