Possibly screwed up hdd.

y0 ppl, as some of you know from irc, my computer programming class lacks funds hardcore... but we have a problem. Today the teacher came to me with a question, that no one else could solve. We have fdisk'd the drive, deleted all partitions, primary and extended etc, created new partitions.. anyway, even after we format the drive 3-4 times for good measure.. the problem is that computer either runs win95, win98. my teacher prefers 98 because we are giving it to a nother teacher once we fix it. every time we try and install, it loads the os, then once getting in there, it runs the add new hardware wizard, which is normal and fine.. but after that, it cant find any .dll files. it does that even AFTER new formats, using different install disks, hell even changing os's. i told the teacher its probably the hdd, we scan disk'ed it and fixed the one problem. i was thinking there were some bad sectors or something. but the teacher also said that they are fine and that he has checked. anyway, we need to get the os installed, and we need a new hdd possibly.. we have no money so we cant get a new hdd, so if there is any way to fix this or if anyone has any ideas...

Did you try the hdd on another motherboard? It only being dll's baffles me, but it could be a processor or memory problem. I cannot see it being the HDD, becuase even if it had bad sectors or accessing problem (that could be it too), then it should at least get some dll's and other files.

If it does in fact work on another motherboard, check the memory, processor or both. I would contribute it more to memory because a failed CPU means complete failure most of the time.

Hope this helps

Stupid Question No. 1

Is it Windows, or you, that can't see the DLL files?

No. 2

if Windows, I take it next time the machine is rebooted, it wont start?

No. 3

Does it complian about the same DLL file every time?

No. 4

Have I gone completely insane??

Hmm.. There is nothing that I can think of that will prevent just .dll files from saving on the hard drive. The only thing I can think of is that during the installs, the .dll files are landing right at a poinbt where there are bad sectors on the hard drive. I would boot to a 3.5" setup disk, run scandisk before you do the install, and then do the installation after that.

Now, I think that when you reformat a hard drive you actually erase the bad sector markings and have to rerun scandisk to mark them again. I could be wrong on that though, maybe only a low level will erase them, I'm not sure.

Try the drive in another computer setup. Sometimes older BIOS chips limit the size the drive can be. Even if you have a 16GB drive, the BIOS may see less than that, especially when you tell me they don't have a lot of money to spend. That tells me they prolly have very outdated technology also.

So, I suggest looking for a bios update, and trying it again. Or check out the drives website for any other utilities they may have.

A scandisk with surface scan should tell you pretty definitevely whether you have a bad disk or not.

If the drive does, in fact, have bad sectors you probably need to go ahead and chunk it. Where is one, there will be more popping up soon. You'll be getting calls from the person getting the machine wanting to know why programs won't load and files are corrupt, and if you're not careful you may end up getting blamed if this person gets agitated enough. Don't knowingly give somebody a drive that is on its last leg.

I have to go with xmaddness on this one.I usually use format c:/u/s which will do an unconditional format and transfer your command.com.I am not sure if it is the same as low level formatting?.You definitely have to remove the old mirror immage which will happen either way.

regards
v/man

Hrm.. well, like mentioned before:
Try the hdd on a different motherboard, update the BIOS, check the drivers, and only run a low level format on an IDE or EIDE if the hdd has failed miserably. If you know what DLLs that is isn't installing, try to copy those from a different computer and then put them on the hdd. It is a hardware class so make sure no one changed the jumpers and make sure you have the right cables and that they're properly hooked up. There may be a problem with the read/write heads but i dont think that's it cause from what you say it all works fine untill it's time to install the drivers. May want to go to www.driversguide.com or the hardware's website and download the updated version of all the hardware drivers. Good luck. ;)

maybe it would help us if you explained, step by step what happens during an attempted hardware install.

we cant do any hardware installs because we dont have any hardware. We have 16 computers in the room, all are too shitty to try there mobos on the one in question. if we had money i wouldnt be asking you all how to fix it. thanks for the input. ill try some of the stuff mentioned when i get back to school tuesday.

At the risk of getting flamed to pieces I'm passing this on....Bill Gates actually has a charitable organization set up to assist school systems that are strapped for cash with the purchasing of computer equipment that you guys might want to consider. I don't have the info handy or I would be happy to share. Given the resourcefulness I've seen you exhibit er0k, I'm confident that you can google your way into finding out exactly who to contact to check and see if your school qualifies. Just trying to help. :)

er0k,
[1] Use a low-level format utility to completely erase the disk
(Search Google for one made by the HDDs manufacturer)
[2] Partition it and format it using a boot disk with newish fdisk and format (FAT32 capable, i.e. not a Win95 boot disk)
[3] Run scandisk with a surface scan & enable the check bad sectors option
[4] Get a Norton Ghost or equivalent (Nero hard drive backup?) image from a system known to work, and image it onto the HDD rather than installing 98 directly
[5] If these fail, check the hdd in other machines and check if its other hardware causing the problem
[6] failing that, try a different OS (linux) to see if it is an isolated problem with Windows 98n only (in which case, try 95 or something else (Windows 3.11!!??, DOS6.2, Windows NT?)

Hope at least some of that helps!

Just to add to Rewandythal's list.

[7] Check the installation media.. Things like this can happen if the media (disk's or cd) are bad or if the fdd or cd-rom is in bad condition..
[7.1] Try to change installation media and see if that helps.
[7.2] Try to change the drive (fdd/cd) you use for installation against another drive you know works.

~micael

If the drive's a Maxtor or quantum you could try running the Maxtor's Maxblast utility to diagnose the drive... (Other drive manifacturers usually also have such utilities)...

Besides that, like the others said, could you describe more precisely how/what makes you say that dll files go missing?


Ammo

Well ill post what i know, even though itll get negged and i wont be able to post anymore, but screw that i need to fix this. Whenever we reinstall win98, with each and every disk, it loads up a screen after install that says cannot find yada yada.dll, and gives like a million of those screens. Constantly, and we have even sat there forever clicking skip this and there is always another screen. I think the problem is that there is a bad partition on the drive, and we need to run a dos boot disk, fdisk it and then format. But that probably wont work either, ill try some of the other stuff on here if that doesnt work. Thanks for tha help.

I had a problem similar to that....all of a sudden my computer wouldn't boot...(windows ME), and I tried rebooting, reinstalling, formatting, etc., and it turns out that the memory I bought a few months back went bad...I guess cuz it was cheap or somethin. Loaded linux instead and no problems since. (No blue-screens either! lol)

It sounds like your installation media are bad,
or the drive you are installing from. The install
program can't find those files when it tries to
install them. Are you installing from floppy disks?
They are notorious for going bad at the most
inconvenient time.

If you are installing from CD it could still happen,
though not as often.
:cool: