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New Check the drive
It probably is set for ATA100 mode, and you need to jumper it to ATA66 or some lower mode. Most 80 Gig drives are designed for faster systems, and old BIOSes won't detect them due to the disk geometry being over the BIOS max size. You'd have to upgrade the BIOS to support it, if the BIOS upgrade does not support 80 gig drives, you a SOL for that system unless you buy an ATA100 PCI controller and use a boot-sector driver that comes with the 80 gig drive.

My advice is to take the drive back where you got it from. Then find a smaller drive on the Internet somewhere. 20 gigs should be the max size to get. Windows 98 won't recognize a drive over 20 gigs, IIRC. So you would have to use Windows 2000 or XP instead.

Here are three sources I use for old or used parts:
[link|http://www.computergeeks.com/|http://www.computergeeks.com/]
[link|http://www.netseller.com/|http://www.netseller.com/]
[link|http://www.pconramp.com/|http://www.pconramp.com/]

Edit: One other thing to do is zero wipe the 80gig drive. It may be full of junk or errors. Download Killdisk from [link|http://www.killdisk.com/eraser.htm|http://www.killdisk.com/eraser.htm] and run it on the 80 gig drive and then after killing the disk, reformat it and see if that fixes it. I had to do this with my 80Gig drive after I updated the BIOS to see the 80Gig drive and I had some of the errors that you had with the disk being empty or scrambled, etc.

Use the utility that comes with the hard drive to partition it, use no bigger than 20gig partitions for 98, or else it may not be able to read them properly.

Alternatively to the WD drive partition program, I was able to use KNOPPIX CFDISK to partition the drive, it handles 80gig and larger drives as well.

I went through something like that with a 160Gig drive, and then same thing with an 80Gig drive. I feel your pain.

Chances are the Quantum may be ok, but the signals from the WD confused the system. Try the Quantum by itself and see if you can access it.



"What's the use of saving life when you see what you do with it?" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"




[link|http://www.xormad.com:4096/district268|I am from District 268].
Expand Edited by orion May 29, 2004, 08:39:02 PM EDT
Expand Edited by orion May 29, 2004, 08:45:20 PM EDT
New Went for a walk to blow off steam
ran into a neighbor who invited the family over to swim in his backyard pool. Told him why I was pacing the sidewalk. He said that he had an unused 20 gig HD laying around somewhere and that I was free to have it if I wanted it. Since I knew that a 20 gig HD would work fine, I gladly accepted. He gave it to me, I took it home, brought the family back for a swim and ignored the PC till the this morning.

Woke up, installed the 20 gig only, ran the "Max Blaster" software that came with a 40 gig Maxtor I had bought last year (I still love seeing the line "Now starting Caldera DR-DOS" when it begins) which prepped the HD AND flashed the BIOS. Hooked up the Quantum & rebooted - PC saw both drives, the Quantum still had everything, and the Max Blaster has a fast copy utility. Copied everything from the Quantum to the 20 gig, pulled out the Quantum and rebooted.

It started up just fine. Spent most of today installing the games the kids want and removing a lot of the crap that came pre-installed or stuff that I had put on there over the years. Tomorrow I'm going to a local PC shop to get a 128 or 256 Meg DIMM to handle the more recent games a little better.

The wife wants me to return the 80 gig WD, but since I'm not sure what, if any, personal data was copied to it, I think I'll keep it until I purchase another desktop and use it then.
lincoln
"Windows XP has so many holes in its security that any reasonable user will conclude it was designed by the same German officer who created the prison compound in "Hogan's Heroes." - Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
[link|mailto:bconnors@ev1.net|contact me]
New Walking away is usually a good idea. Buy him a 12-pack. :-)
New Now, that's a good ending! :)
Alex

Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost. -- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher
     I am ROYALLY P.O.ed today!!! - (lincoln) - (14)
         Reset the BIOS. - (folkert)
         It is likely . . . - (Andrew Grygus) - (7)
             Re: It is likely . . . - (deSitter) - (6)
                 Latest Win98s did have 32-bit FAT. - (a6l6e6x) - (5)
                     Versions - (inthane-chan) - (1)
                         Right you are! It was the late Win95s that intro'ed it. -NT - (a6l6e6x)
                     of course, and it can't see huge partitions - (deSitter) - (2)
                         Well, yes and no. - (pwhysall) - (1)
                             Correct. - (inthane-chan)
         Another few things to check. - (Another Scott)
         Check the drive - (orion) - (3)
             Went for a walk to blow off steam - (lincoln) - (2)
                 Walking away is usually a good idea. Buy him a 12-pack. :-) -NT - (Another Scott)
                 Now, that's a good ending! :) -NT - (a6l6e6x)

There are 178 parent languages on our planet, with over 1000 dialects. It's amazing we communicate at all.
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