alright recently i tried to partition my 80gig hdd for a new installation of mandrake linux on my already winxp computer. i either messed up on the partition or something but linux couldnt be written on the partition or even make a partition with the linux tool. so i tried to put in the winxp cd and repair the winxp, but it said it couldnt because it couldnt find the harddrive. then i try to fresh install winxp and delete all old harddrive info, but it couldnt detect hdd. so i make a win98 startup disk with samsun HUTIL(i program by samsung to clean samsung harddrives, i have a samsung800vh something like that). so i start up from the disk and a:\hutil.exe and it runs the program and scans for drives but finds none!. then i go into bios, auto detect and it says "ide primary drive: 56x cd rom". so im guess the partition or something wont let the computer detect my drive. any ideas other then taking it to the store? im gunna check it out physically but dont think i will find much.

let us know about the physical, could you give us more info on your rig: cpu, board, other items, it helps us out by knowing what you've got so we can help you out
.

alright

abit mobo
amd xp 1900
samsung 80gig
gefroce 4 mx440
atapi cd rom

any suggestions at all??

From what I remember, linux doesn't play nice with NTFS.

I would say check your data and power cables to the drive and mobo. I had over the past 5 days a couple of drives that werent being detected bacuse the molex connector was plugged in but loose fitting.

natively, mandrake plays fine with NTFS, redhat does not...you can add the rpm later for redhat, but out of the box it should see your NTFS drive....just all a game as to which OS to install first and which boot loader to use (boot.ini or GRUB)

This may or may not apply. Of the four dead hard drive replacement jobs I have done, all were samsung drives, and all where Samsung's...I would check out that drive REAL close. Thats just my blurb of input.

hmm...may sound dumb...but u didnt lose a jumper for that HD did u? that mite make it so it doesnt see it in bios...could end up as something stupid. other then that, im sure uve done some of this, but check cables, make sure u got the Primary ide one going to the hd, make sure its all the way in...make sure hd has power, that could happen that it falls out.

just a few simple suggestions...everyone gets caught up by sumtin stupidly simple like that sometimes.

Well I can tell you this:

This problems has:
- nothing to do with XP or NTFS
- nothing to do with Linux
- nothing to do with how you partitioned the drive

This problem is on a way lower level. Cables ok? Jumpers ok? Does it spin up? Does it work on another IDE channel?

Use your Win98 recovery disk... type in "FDISK"

Create a primary partition (which will give it a drive letter). then exit FDISK, go back in (still using the recovery disk...

When it comes back up, type in "Format C:"

Your computer should recognize the drive hopefully.

If it is NTFS, you will have to use DELPART to get rid of any old partitions first.

go into bios and see if your bios can see your hard drive

if it can, reboot onto your startup disk and delete your partition, then put in linux disk and reboot and allow your linux installer to format and configure with ext2 or ext3.

doing this should blow away your windows partition and allow you to install linux

if you want to dual boot, you should use 3rd party software like partition magic, make 2 partitions, format the first one with ntfs or fat 32, install your windows os on the FIRST partition, but leave 2nd one alone, then reboot and install linux on 2nd partition

darksamurai's the winner, after spending $120 in the shop . he said the windows partition was inactive and the linux partition was active im not really sure but he said using fdisk or cfdisk would have worked

yes ds is right, because i have had the same problem before. exact same thing. i installed mandrake on one hdd and then went to earse it and start over, and it said it could see the hdd. so what i did was go into fdisk, look at the partions, and deleted the extended dos pratition. then i made a new partition, exited, and typed "Format C:" it all worked fine after that. i think its a problem with NTFS and Mandrake Linux. I dun think they play well together.

Shoot for $120 you coulda just gone out and bought a new HDD... 8(