Oh, right. I meant whatever aplies. The idea is to link the real file /dev/ide/<whatever> to the virtual address /dev/hda. the problem, as you said in the beggining is that dd /dev/hda gives a not found error... then I thought that the linking could be wrong.

Try ANY version of partition magic, or any disk partition manager for that matter... google it.

Hello all,
Ciccio:
Sorry for the misunderstanding. I will try you suggestions in a while. I will also give the dmesg output as a friend said I should post.

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

Hello all,
Here is the dmesg:

Linux version 2.4.22 (root@midas) (gcc version 3.2.3) #6 Tue Sep 2 17:43:01 PDT 2003

BIOS-provided physical RAM map:

BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009fc00 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 000000000009fc00 - 00000000000a0000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 00000000000f0000 - 0000000000100000 (reserved)
BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 0000000014000000 (usable)
BIOS-e820: 00000000fffe0000 - 0000000100000000 (reserved)
320MB LOWMEM available.
On node 0 totalpages: 81920
zone(0): 4096 pages.
zone(1): 77824 pages.
zone(2): 0 pages.
DMI not present.
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/kernels/bare.i/bzImage initrd=initrd.img load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 ramdisk_size=6464 rw root=/dev/ram SLACK_KERNEL=bare.i
Initializing CPU#0
Detected 349.184 MHz processor.
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25
Calibrating delay loop... 696.32 BogoMIPS
Memory: 318432k/327680k available (1813k kernel code, 8860k reserved, 614k data, 116k init, 0k highmem)
Dentry cache hash table entries: 65536 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
Inode cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 6, 262144 bytes)
Mount cache hash table entries: 512 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
Buffer cache hash table entries: 32768 (order: 5, 131072 bytes)
Page-cache hash table entries: 131072 (order: 7, 524288 bytes)
CPU: L1 I cache: 16K, L1 D cache: 16K
CPU: L2 cache: 512K
CPU: After generic, caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Common caps: 0183f9ff 00000000 00000000 00000000
CPU: Intel Pentium II (Deschutes) stepping 01
Enabling fast FPU save and restore... done.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... OK.
POSIX conformance testing by UNIFIX
mtrr: v1.40 (20010327) Richard Gooch (rgooch@atnf.csiro.au)
mtrr: detected mtrr type: Intel
PCI: PCI BIOS revision 2.10 entry at 0xfa124, last bus=1
PCI: Using configuration type 1
PCI: Probing PCI hardware
PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)
PCI: Using IRQ router PIIX [8086/7110] at 00:14.0
Limiting direct PCI/PCI transfers.
Linux NET4.0 for Linux 2.4
Based upon Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039
Initializing RT netlink socket
Starting kswapd
VFS: Disk quotas vdquot_6.5.1
Journalled Block Device driver loaded
Detected PS/2 Mouse Port.
pty: 512 Unix98 ptys configured
Serial driver version 5.05c (2001-07-08) with HUB-6 MANY_PORTS MULTIPORT SHARE_IRQ SERIAL_PCI enabled
ttyS00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
PCI: Found IRQ 3 for device 00:04.0
Real Time Clock Driver v1.10e
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
FDC 0 is a post-1991 82077
RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 6464K size 1024 blocksize
loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
Uniform Multi-Platform E-IDE driver Revision: 7.00beta4-2.4
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
PIIX4: IDE controller at PCI slot 00:14.1
PIIX4: chipset revision 1
PIIX4: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide0: BM-DMA at 0x24a0-0x24a7, BIOS settings: hdaMA, hdbio
ide1: BM-DMA at 0x24a8-0x24af, BIOS settings: hdcio, hddio
hda: COMPAQ SCR-3232, ATAPI CD/DVD-ROM drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: attached ide-cdrom driver.
hda: ATAPI 32X CD-ROM drive, 128kB Cache, DMA
Uniform CD-ROM driver Revision: 3.12
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k scsi_hostadapter, errno = 2
md: linear personality registered as nr 1
md: raid0 personality registered as nr 2
md: raid1 personality registered as nr 3
md: raid5 personality registered as nr 4
raid5: measuring checksumming speed
8regs : 578.000 MB/sec
32regs : 346.800 MB/sec
pII_mmx : 784.000 MB/sec
p5_mmx : 802.000 MB/sec
raid5: using function: p5_mmx (802.000 MB/sec)
md: md driver 0.90.0 MAX_MD_DEVS=256, MD_SB_DISKS=27
md: Autodetecting RAID arrays.
md: autorun ...
md: ... autorun DONE.
LVM version 1.0.5+(22/07/2002)
Initializing Cryptographic API
NET4: Linux TCP/IP 1.0 for NET4.0
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
IP: routing cache hash table of 4096 buckets, 32Kbytes
TCP: Hash tables configured (established 32768 bind 65536)
NET4: Unix domain sockets 1.0/SMP for Linux NET4.0.
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
Freeing initrd memory: 2500k freed
VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem).
Freeing unused kernel memory: 116k freed
usb.c: registered new driver usbdevfs
usb.c: registered new driver hub
usb-uhci.c: $Revision: 1.275 $ time 12:59:47 Aug 28 2003
usb-uhci.c: High bandwidth mode enabled
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:14.2
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 00:05.0
usb-uhci.c: USB UHCI at I/O 0x2480, IRQ 11
usb-uhci.c: Detected 2 ports
usb.c: new USB bus registered, assigned bus number 1
hub.c: USB hub found
hub.c: 2 ports detected
usb-uhci.c: v1.275:USB Universal Host Controller Interface driver
usb.c: registered new driver usbkbd
usbkbd.c: :USB HID Boot Protocol keyboard driver
usb.c: registered new driver hiddev
usb.c: registered new driver hid
hid-core.c: v1.8.1 Andreas Gal, Vojtech Pavlik <vojtech@suse.cz>
hid-core.c: USB HID support drivers
mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
usb.c: deregistering driver hiddev
usb.c: deregistering driver hid
usb.c: deregistering driver usbkbd
usb.c: USB disconnect on device 00:14.2-0 address 1
usb.c: USB bus 1 deregistered
usb.c: deregistering driver usbdevfs
usb.c: deregistering driver hub

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

Hello all,
My friend and I reviewed the dmesg output. It doesn't seem to be picking up the HDD. Way before I had the dmesg, I only could get to see the output at boot and I used to think that HDA was being read as the HDD. Now I have the output and know it was the CD-ROM. I guess the Hard Drive is dead

I'll keep trying either ways.

Thank you all,
Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

Wait a minute. Do you have your Windoze disk? Try this: Boot from the Windoze CD and install Windoze. This will restore proper partitioning and a master boot record. Then boot with the Slackware CD and use the Linux command "fdisk /dev/hda" (or hdc in your case maybe, try both if one doesn't work), and partition the disk for Linux. Then install Slackware.

Hello everyone,
Crazed123:
Did you read the thread first? Read it. If it was that simple, I would not be here, heh. I know a lot ab... forget it

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

I read the thread, why don't you try it? I fixed my own HDD that way once.

Hello everyone,
Crazed123:
I won't try it because I already have. My first starter thread was:

Non-System disk or disk error
replace and strike any key when ready

I did not know what to do. So I took my Windows XP Professional Disk out and it did not want to work. So I asked my friend and he recommened me to use linux because it is much more reliable. I agreed. So I downloaded Slackware 9.0 from my friends system. I put it in and it booted up fine.

Then I put the command in " cfdisk ". It gave me this output.

FATAL ERROR: Cannot open disk drive
Press any key to exit cfdisk

Even more upset with this huge problem... I asked my friend again that it didn't want to install and it gave me the "FATAL ERROR..." He said the partition was corrupt so I use the " dd " command.

root@slackware:/# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda
dd: /dev/hda: No such device or address

It did not work.. (etc)

So you should have re-read.

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

Crazed, won't work. If the boot seq isn't detecting the hdd, it won't work at all.

Hello all,
Ciccio:
It's pretty frustrating going through all this and finding out the HDD isn't being detected

Thank you,
Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

Ah OK. I think it's a physical error then.

I know it's frustrating... I understand you... I had a similar problem with a Hard Drive a long time ago... I almost cried because of it... I lost about 15Gigs of programs, photos, music and books (those hurt the most).

physical errors are the worse kind of errors... perhaps a scsi would have survived whatever killed that hdd... but it's not the point... scsi are expensive and not always the best choice... I'm sorry there was nothing we could do to help you... and please, give that drive a proper burying ;-)

Hello everyone,
Ciccio:
Thank you for being so kind.
Physical errors are the worst and it is the truth. I'm not going near SCSI. They're expensive and function unstably. And it's okay; you guys at linuxquestions really helped me out with my 'peace of mind.' If I didn't come here and threw my HDD away without testing different ways to fix it, I would've stayed eager with the "what-if I" questions. You know what I mean.
Well it's been a nice adventure meeting people :P. I will take your request Ciccio and will give it proper burial. Hehehe.

Thank you all,
Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

Hey guys,
Thanks for visiting this thread again.

Now that school is a little less hecting and exams are over, I had time to go back to my hard drive and figure the problem out. I tried different methods.

First, I connected it as a slave drive with my master windows xp drive. At boot, the BIOS reported both hard drives. But gave error that primary slave failed. At explorer, XP did not recognize any HDD.

Then I connected it as a master and BIOS reported: Primary Master Failed

Afterwards, I tried installing XP on it, the error:
I also placed the MaxBlast and it did not recognize it either.

I placed the broken HDD on my Slack 10.1 box and checked dmesg. It also recognized both HDD's on boot. The jumpers are set accordingly.

Is there any other ways to do a forced hard disk wipe? As stated before, even dd does not function on hda.

Sincerely,
Abid Kazmi

If you want it formatted for windows (as you originally had on there), the best way is to use the windows installer cd. But better, use mke2fs -j /dev/hda and install linux.