Hard Drive Mayhem

ok

this is a bit of a long story so i will try to make it as informative as i can.

A friend of the family has a computer,

specs
Windows 98
pentium 2 mx 400hmz (something like that, didn't have enough time to check)
64-128mb Ram
8gb HD

thats all rough lol

they have had problems with the computer, they have a daughter who had downloaded loads of spyware and adware, visruses and alsorts.

they have a friend who is good with computers and he told them to have a go with Defragging the hard drive.

they had a go, after 8 hours it was stuck on 2%
their friend told them that the hard drive was screwed and they needed a new one.

they came round to meet my parents for a short while and i got told about their problem with the computer. I was curious because it is unlikely that a hard drive can be damaged and not run defrag properly, but still be able to boot up to windows.

He bought a new hard drive from a local shop.
i got it, set the jumpers to master
then replaced the drive.

the bios was not picking the new drive up at all, my first thought was that this was a faulty drive, so as we speak the shop has the drive back and they are checking it.

so, i decided to have a look at this old drive.
i booted it into msDos
typed
format c

and re-formatted the hard drive, so i can do a clean install of windows.
it finished and i inserted a windows 98se cd in, and restarted.

it picked the hard drive up (thank god lol) and the 98 cd was recognised, it then came to boot with windows 98 etc...

then it began a sort of check, and i was hit with a stream of errors. the errors were about the CONFIG.SYS file.

anyone know of a fix, is this a Hard drive problem or Windows problem.
My neighbour has a 98se Cd too, we tried that and we got the same error.
I am guessing that the hard drive is basicly dead, and maybe when er get the new one it will work.

please let me know guys, i really need to get this fixed for them.

Is this computer actually worth messing with? Honestly?

Use old Monitor, mouse, KeyBoard.

Intel Pentium 4 2.4A (HT) GHz 533MHz FSB 1MB L2 $125.00
Intel D865GBFL i865 800FSB w/Audio Video Pro100Lan $97.00
KINGSTON 512MB KIT 400MHZ DDR PC3200 DIMM 3-3-3 $84.00
SONY 16X DVD DDU1621 BARE DRIVE $29.00
SONY CDRW 52x32x52 w/Software - OEM $29.00
Windows XP Professional - Full Version (DSP ) $123.00
ATOP ATX 350WATT POWER SUPPLY w/NEON LIGHT $58.00

Shipping $50.29
Tax (applicable to California residents only): ($42.24)
Order Total: $595.29

it isn't my computer, and they use the computer for their daughter with homework.

i am just helping them out

There are a lot of things this could be one to big, like over a gig size, and could be a (I think its) ultra, "or another way" some older motherboards don't like newer hard drives. For an easy way of putting it.

"jumpers, don't need to be set if it is the only drive on that IDE cable. Well some argue but it doesn't mater"

As for the old hard drive, if windows previously had no problem booting it should be ok, may not be great and could die cuz of hard (bad) usage. But I would say get another 98 CD from like a garage sale or something. That sound like it’s the CD if you need help PM me or I am on AIM @ WeatherProductns

If I remember correctly, when the defragger stops at 2% it goes back to 0% and goes to 2% again and repeats this again and again. To fix this, just start the computer in ehm.. failsafemode?? hold the shift button during boot I think it is on win98.

About the errors, Some viruses might be left on the drive even after you formated it and that could maybe screw things up.

My tip is if you can, get hold of Win2000 and install that instead, I had 2000 running on my old 400Mhz and it rolled good, Had somewhere around 190MB in SDR RAM then though and a GeFroce2MX 64MB.

failsafemode, yes always a good place to defrag!!!

And about formatting, there is away to completely erase it in msdos but I don't remember the code for it or the "name " of it so you can find it.

Yea you have to perform an FDISK ( to completly wipe it of spyware or virus's ) on it, before you FORMAT . this is one of the better tutorals.


http://fdisk.radified.com/

or
http://www.perfectdrivers.com/howto/fdisk-format.html

or


http://www.cybertechhelp.com/html/tutor ... .php/id/36

“Fdisk” should remove most files and viruses, and is the most common used way to clear a hard drive, but there is still another way to completely clear the drive its like this. It’s been awhile so I may not be 100% on, please correct if any computer “nerds” see something wrong… Use at your own risk. or just look for a (Debug Script) or this link > http://www.techtips4u.com/kb/sw/SW00016.htm < this will clear the hard drive and nothing will be on it. (make sure you have all driver info before doing this)

Deleting Partitons
Create a text file called DELPART.TXT with your favorite text editor. Then copy the next few lines of text...

a 100
int13
rax
0301
rbx
0200
f 200 l 200 0
rcx
0001
rdx
0080
p
q
...into the file and copy it to a DOS boot floppy along with a copy of DEBUG.EXE.
To run this debug macro, at the command prompt, type:
Debug <Delpart.txt
This will remove all partitions on the disk. Please, use with caution!
Clearing Partition Info
This debug routine is used to erase all partition information on the hard disk drive when other methods won't do.
FDISK does not update the entire partition sector after the first time when you repartition your disk. This debug script will clear the partition sector (cyl 0, head 0, sector 1) of the first hard drive, which will force FDISK to completely start over.
At a command prompt, start Debug. When you're at the minus prompt (-), enter the following lines and press Enter after each:
F 200 L1000 0
A CS:100
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80

xxx:010C INT 13
xxxx:010E INT 20
xxxx:0110
g
q

Once done, reboot and enjoy your new squeaky wiped drive.<wink>

with a computer that old and that horrible i would just buy a dell 400- 500 dollars would just be 10 times better than wat they got cuz ther isnt a point of all the hassle trying to fix something when u can easily just get a new pc with windows xp

well she is obviously using it for more then that if it became laiding with viruses & virus like things