No Primary Hard Drive

[tgjb007]

Hello,

I just started using Knoppix, have used Linux in the past but not
for a couple of years.

Anyways, I started using Knoppix in order to try and figure out
what's going on with my hard drive. My notebook's hd crashed
so I bought a new one.

When I boot the computer to re-install windows the windows
installation only comes up seeing approx 8GB when the hd
is actually 80GB, and when I try format that 8GB I receive
an error telling me the hd could not be formated. I've just
installed the latest BIOS from my manufacturer and still does
not work. When I go into the BIOS settings I can see the hd
in it's 80GB entirety, but nowhere else does it register as
80GB...even with an old windows 98 boot disk it still does not
see 80GB.

So I tried running Knoppix to see if it would come up with
a listing of the drive so that I might be able to run some sort
of utilities that might fix the problem...but Knoppix doesn't list
anything in the 80GB range when I use the command 'df -h'
to list the current drive information.

Any ideas how to remedy this problem (so I can install
windows again) using Knoppix?

How can I find the primary hd and what utilities can I run
to try and fix this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

-- TG

[kayl]

Since your BIOS is seeing the proper size, I'm guessing the hardware is alright. I'm not sure what you have and haven't already tried so here are some thoughts in increasing severity.

1) The drive manufacturer often has a floppy/CD that comes with disk utilities specifically designed for their hardware, try that first.

2) I can't tell if you used FDISK or not. Use that to display the partition table. If nothing is obvious, erase all the partitions and try to create a new 80GB or whatever set you want.

3) Backup (suggested) and wipe out your MBR. If you don't know what I'm talking about or the specific commands, post back and I'll give you the command lines you'll need.

[rwcitek]

How can I find the primary hd and what utilities can I run
to try and fix this?

Welcome to Knoppix. Glad to have you on board.

Some questions:
- What version of Windows?
- What version of Knoppix?
- Can you boot with boot: knoppix 3, run this code, and post back the output?

( set -x
cat /proc/partitions
fdisk -l /dev/hd?
)

Regards,
- Robert
http://www.cwelug.org