Win98 Lost My D: Drive

rbmartiniv · Joined: Apr 22, 2003 Posts: 2

I have a 3 1/2 yr old Dell 800 mHz machine running Win98. I added a second 20 gig hard drive almost a year ago. A few days ago my machine started acting screwy, didn't want to boot up, kept telling me it couldn't find the operating system! All the while a steady, rhythmic clicking (about one/second) was coming from the inside. I assumed it was the C: drive because of the booting/system problems. I would keep rebooting until it finally loaded Windows and all seemed OK. After about 3 days it miraculously healed itself (for now anyway), however, when I wanted to look up some MP3s on my D: drive it was gone! No D: drive showing up in Windows Explorer, at DOS prompt, or anyway I tried. Then I tried the Clean Disk in the system utilities and I was allowed to select the D: drive but received an error message telling me either to put a disk in or close the drive door. It now seems to think the D: drive is a removable drive! Can anyone help? I have 15 gigs of music MP3's that I would sure hate to lose.
Thanks,
Robert

Bodosan · Joined: Apr 28, 2003 Posts: 8

Dear Rbmartiniv,
The ticking sound is often de heads of the hd searching for some track, not finding it and trying again.
I wouldn't trust your c:, though it seems oké now.
1. Backup everything you are able to backup!!! (c: and d; and whatever).
2. Look at things in your Bios. Are there two hd's recognised here?
2. If you absolutely positively can't find your d: (I assume it's a different drive and not a different partition), open your computer and get the disk out for a try and check in another computer. If this works, backup you 15 gig mpeg, but you also know that the disk is oké.
3. That leaves the c: (as master without anything else). Check thoroughly.
4. For a little extra info: (also smart info) go to http://www.aida32.hu/aida-download.php?bit=32 and download and install Aida32 and use this to investigate your c:-drive (and after connecting again your d Smile

I don't like the sound you mention. Perhaps advisable to replace your hd (at least the c: one).
Bodosan