crash...windows not seeing drive

[68442]

Something got deleted off my computer...now she wont boot. The bios sees the sata hardrive but windows setup doesnt. The raid drivers appear to be there, I've flashed the cmos. Is this hardrive toast?

 

[k61824]

what do you mean the raid drivers appear to be there? You may want to ensure it to be there with a driver floppy disk.

 

[choirbass]

yeah... it just sounds like you need to have the sata/raid drivers onhand (by way of copying them to a floppy disk)... then hitting F6 when the windows setup first starts, then partway through the files being copied, itll ask you if you want to install any 3rd party drivers, insert the floppy, and after installing the drivers from it, windows will then see the hdds when it gets to the point of selecting a hdd to install to.

 

[68442]

I do have a 3.5 floppy with the drivers on it, when I hit f6 nothing happens, I'm starting to think the floppy drive I have jerry rigged isnt working right. Also I bought a external hardrive mount...is it possible to go into the drive and unerase what messed it up? I think I accidently erased the sata drivers.

 

[choirbass]

so... when it says to hit F6, and then you hit F6, it doesnt bring up a menu about a minute or so later asking you to insert a driver disk?

you should check your bios settings to make sure its detecting the floppy drive also, and that its enabled


you should just be able to go to the manufacturers site and download the correct drivers again

 

[Guest]

If you haven't rebooted too many times you can restore the registry to a previous setup.
In Win 2 k and XP you hit "f8" during boot , at prompt , and choose " last known good config".
Win 98 hold "ctrl " ( maybe the "shift " key I don't really remember) key during boot up and choose "c prompt" and type in "scanreg/restore". It will come up 5-6 saved registries, choose one with date that was saved before malfunction, and booted successfully.
Sure there is more defined ways to do restore , maybe one of the more knowleable people here can confirm , or google search it.
Good luck

 

[68442]

thanks for the info....bios shows the 3.5 floppy...hitting f6 nothing happens...just goes on to installing windows. I'm pretty sure the 3.5 is the only way to get the raid drives to the MB, its a TUL brand MB and that was one of the downsides, when it boots it shows the raid version and the drive detected. When I put my ear up to the 3.5 drive I can hear it spinning...I think I'll buy a cheap floppy drive and try that 1st. then maybe a hardrive encloser and save what I can/see if its toast.

When I do go to the raid control section "control A" It gives me choices like mirror drive, etc, but I only have one drive so I assume this section is pointless?

 

[68442]

well it was a bad 3.5 floppy...fired right up with a new one. Now is there anyway once reinstalling xp that I can get the data back? It did the quick format.

 

[choirbass]

if the hard drive containing the data was formatted with a quick format, the data for all practical purposes is erased...

its 'practically', because you might still be able to retrieve fragments of your data from the drive (the data is basically hidden from being able to be seen, the binary 1's and 0's of the drive are rewritten over as just 0's, i believe)... ...if you put that same drive into a seperate computer that already has windows installed... and use a data recovery program, such as 'PC Inspector File Recovery'... you may just be able to recover some of the data, but theres no guarantee at all

a much more expensive option, is to take your drive to a professional data recovery service, but they can charge thousands of dollars to have it done...

edit: you wont need to put the drive in a seperate computer if that drive already has windows installed on it... you can just run the data recovery program from there