[RESOLVED] Is my Hard Drive useless?

Yesterday I used a DOS utility program to format a HD and copy the existing OS onto it. I have done this many many times and never had any problems. Now, after the HD was formatted as a bootable drive and the OS from the C-Drive was copied onto it I exited out of the utility program and booted up my system. When I went to open the newly formatted drive Windows displayed a message box saying the hard drive is not formatted and would you like to format it now. Thinking I better not until I find out what the problem is i declined from formatting it through Windows. When I clicked on Properties it told me that the HD had 0 data on it. Not knowing exactly what the problem is and why I just left it alone for the time being thinking I will deal with this later because I had to leave for the day. Before leaving I powered down my PC. This morning when I finally rebooted my PC I noticed that the HD was not listed. So, I went into the BIOS and sure enough it too did not see the HD. I then restarted the DOS utility program and there too it did not see the presence of the HD.

Now that this HD cannot be seen by the OS is it a goner? Is there anyway to get it formatted again so that it becomes useable?

OK, I fixed it. Thanks for nothing

i just saw this. what was the solution?

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Originally Posted by jmsrickland

OK, I fixed it. Thanks for nothing

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You only waited 3 hours, you never gave anyone a chance to read this let alone respond.
What was the solution btw?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by JuggaloBrotha

You only waited 3 hours, you never gave anyone a chance to read this let alone respond.
What was the solution btw?

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I only waited 3 hours because I was able to resolve the issue in 3 hours. The rest of the statement is basically just a figure of speech: if people help me I thank them for their help, if no one helps me I thank them anyway for not helping me:D.

I do not know why the utility program screwed up but it did. The program prompts me to first format the drive and gives me the option of formatting it as a slave drive or a bootable drive. I selected bootable. After it formats the drive the program then copies the OS from the current C Drive making an exact copy of the OS. I have done this many many times with never a problem and on this same PC. This time for some unknown reason it simply did not do it's task and not only did it not format the drive it left it un-formatted and no data.

The other problem was I had the drive jumpered as a master drive so I actually had two drives both as masters. If the drive had been formatted and the OS had been copied Windows or the PC itself would have squawked about it because you can't have two masters but I guess because it wasn't formatted Windows never made an issue of it other than telling me it wasn't formatted. After I switched it back to a slave drive Windows was able to see it. This doesn't explain however why Windows didn't complain about it in the first place when it was formatted and had data on it - doesn't make any sense to me

Now, maybe but I don't know for sure until I try it again, the reason the utility didn't format the drive was because it was jumpered as a master. Possible but who knows.