HDD lost and found, but not recognized

  • Thread starter Thread starter Martin
  • Start date Start date
M

Martin

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

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?

Thanks, Marty
 
Martin said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

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!
Click to expand...

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?
Click to expand...

See posts by Svend Olaf Mikkelsen or Zvi Netiv.
 
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