[giogio]

I have Dell Latitude L400, the slim model with no CD rom.

One month ago I decided I didn't like the windows installation I had so I decided to format the hard drive, repartition and install windows again... Big mistake.

I tood the hard drive out, put it on a USB portable case that I have with another hard drive. Plug it into my other Laptop, deleted everything, and started Powerquest's Partition Magic 8. I repartitioned the hard drive, and before I commited the changes, I got a warning message that said: "there's no partition table active, do you want to proceed" and since I didn't know where to click to make anyting active and thought it was no big deal I went haead and commited the changes.

Next thing I wanted to do was to format the drive but windows said it couldn't, I don't remember the exact message. So I thought, Hmmm, maybe I should have waited. So I started partition Magic again and I don't quite remember but it said if I wanted to fix something, and I clicked yeees! Which I think it was a big mistake. Then partition Magic detected the drive with the wrong size and was not able to format it.

I turned the computer of, then on, tried to delete the partition again and this time I could not access the disk.

Since then I haven't been able to do anything to the disk. If I conect it to the comptuer via USB, sometimes it detects it but some times it doesn't, I tried a few partition recovery softwares but some of them detect the drive with the wrong size and none of them are able to fix it. I tried the recovery console and run chkdsk, but it says it cannot find a hard drive attached. Also I've tried Fdisk but it says there's no fixed drive attached. I also tried fixbootmbr from the recovery console but all it does is nothing and returns me to the command prompt after a blank row. If I try to use fixboot it says the same thing; no hard drive detected. This is with the drive connected via the usb port because I cannot conect it to my other laptop since my new laptop is ATA and the drive in question is IDE.

I know that it's there because when I put the original windows CD on my drive and turn the computer on it says if I want to install windows on that drive, and it detects it with the right size. But if I try to delete the partition or if I try to install windows on it, it says that windows cannot access the drive.

I tried some recovery tools from the Ultimate Boot CD with the drive connected (on the usb) but all of them get stuck. On the other hand if I connect another drive (in good shape) all of them are able to perform the diagnostics.

WHAT CAN I DO?

The drive in question:
Toshiba MK6411MAT
6495MB
Cyl 13424
Heads 15
Sectors 63

[DaveBurnett]

Have you tried the UBCD tools with it in the original machine??

You should NEVER partition a drive attached to USB or Firewire that you intend to use IDE connected. The geometry of the disk could be reported differently - as you have seen.

ATA and IDE are the same. Do you mean SATA?

[crjdriver]

Ok, without a CD drive you are somewhat limited in what you can do. Here is what I would do to fix the problem.

1 Connect the lappy drive to your desktop using an adapter.
2 Zero fill the drive.
3 Now format the drive as fat32
4 Copy the windows i386 folder from your CD to the drive. Note put a copy of smartdrv.exe on the drive as well since you will need this during the install. If you cannot find it, I can send you a copy.
5 Boot with a win9x boot disk and run sys X: where X is the letter of your lappy drive
6 Pull the drive and install it in the lappy.
7 Boot the system and run smartdrv.exe. Now change to the i386 folder and run winnt.exe

Setup should start and you can install windows.

[crjdriver]

Note when you run sys X, you might want to pull power from your normal boot drive so as to not make a mistake as to which drive you are copying system files to.

[giogio]

Thankyou crjdriver, it seems you are very knowledgeable about this, I appreciate your help .

I just wanted to ask you which is a good zero fill utility to use. and second, don't you think I'd have the same problem with it ? (that when I try to zero fill the drive the utility will tell me that it cannot detect any hard drive attached)

I'm going to try that and let you guys know of the outcome.

Cheers.

[giogio]

Dave I can't use the UBCD tools ont he original machine because it doesn't have a CD unit.

[crjdriver]

I use an app called paragon disk wipe however it is not free. You can use the hd maker's utility ie the one you download from WD, Maxtor, Seagate, etc. It has an option to zero the drive. This does not cost anything.

If the drive is connected to a 2.5>3.5 adapter, and the drive is ok ie not failed, then the utility will find it.

Again be careful when using any type of wipe / zero fill utility. Make sure you have the correct drive. That is why I recommend pulling power from the normal system boot drive.