Reference number: CH000047

Hard drive is not being detected when using a boot diskette.

Issue:

Hard drive is not being detected when using a boot diskette.

Cause:

Below we have listed reasons why a hard disk drive may not be detected when using a bootable diskette:

1. Disk drive overlay or other software utility is being used on the hard disk drive.
2. Hard drive is a SCSI hard disk drive.
3. Hard disk drive is not properly setup in CMOS.
4. Hard disk drive is bad, not formatted.

Solution:

Disk drive overlay (DDO) or other software utility is being used on the hard disk drive

The computer's Hard disk drive may be utilizing a DDO (Disk Drive Overlay), which is commonly used for larger hard drives to allow them to work properly. When using a DDO you must boot the computer from the hard drive as normal. As the computer is booting up you should see a message asking you to press a key such as CTRL + ESC to boot from a floppy. Once the key combination is pressed for your DDO, you will then have the opportunity to place the disk within the computer and boot from the disk, and at the same time, you will be able to read from the hard drive.

Hard drive is a SCSI hard disk drive

If you are using a SCSI hard disk drive it may not be able to be seen unless the SCSI device drivers are being loaded for it. In addition, some manufacturers may require the drive to be setup and created through the SCSI utility and not Fdisk.

See our SCSI page for additional information and help with it.

Hard disk drive is not properly setup in CMOS

If the computer hard disk drive is not setup properly in CMOS, the hard disk drive will not be recognized properly. Verify that CMOS is properly detecting and initializing the hard disk drive.

Information about how to enter the BIOS / CMOS setup can be found on document CH000192.

Hard disk drive is bad, not formatted

When attempting to type fdisk you receive a message saying "No Fixed Disks preset", then this could be a bad hard drive or possibly loose connections. If you are able to get into the FDISK options, attempt to delete and recreate the partition (This will erase all the information on the hard disk drive). Also ensure that after this is done, that you format the partition to allow it to be readable.

Additional information and help with fdisk can be found on our fdisk page.

Additional information:

• See our boot disk page for information about bootable diskettes and how to create them.