Member Avatar for mwshuffy

I'm running an ASUS P2B-F motherboard with a 7gb hard drive. I'm trying to install Windows 98 SE, when I try run fdisk I get a 'No fixed disks present' error.

In the bios I can see that my hard drive is recognised.

I've tried the following ways to resolve this:

Swapping ribbon cables
Checking jumpers
Trying a different hard drive
Trying different config in BIOS

I just cannot get it to work!

Pentium 3 500MHZ
7GB Hard drive
ASUS P2B-F motherboard

PLEASE HELP I'M DESPERATE TO GET THIS RUNNING!

Cheers.

  • 6 Contributors
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  • 3 Weeks Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack

Dani AI

Generated

Quick summary for : BIOS seeing the drive but Win98 fdisk reporting "No fixed disks present" usually means DOS/FDISK can't access the drive the way the BIOS/installer can. The original checks (swapping cables, jumpers, trying another drive, toggling BIOS modes) were the right first moves, but a few targeted tests will narrow the cause.

Basic checklist (do these in order):

  • In BIOS Setup confirm the primary channel shows the exact model and capacity (note CHS or LBA numbers). If the BIOS shows "Unknown" or zeroes, the motherboard/hardware detection is the problem.
  • Make the drive the only device on the primary IDE cable: disconnect any secondary drive, set the jumper to Master (avoid cable‑select unless the cable and both drives explicitly support CS), and put the drive on the end/black plug of the ribbon. Reboot and recheck BIOS.
  • Move the drive to the other IDE channel or a different IDE port on the board. A drive on an add‑on PCI IDE/SCSI/RAID controller will not be visible to fdisk unless DOS drivers for that controller are loaded.

Why fdisk sometimes fails while BIOS sees the disk:

  • FDISK (Win98 startup floppy) uses BIOS/DOS-level access; if the drive is behind a controller that needs a DOS driver (RAID, some third‑party IDE chips), fdisk will show "No fixed disks present." The Windows 98 Setup program or a modern partition tool includes extra drivers and can succeed where bare DOS fdisk does not.

Practical options and cautions:

  • As noted, letting the Windows 98 installer create the partition is a quick workaround. If preferring fdisk, follow the single‑drive/master test above first. If the board still fails to expose the drive to DOS, try a different boot disk (a Win98 startup disk made on another PC, or a live partition tool) or reseating/resetting CMOS. BIOS updates can help on very old boards but carry risk—only update from ASUS support and follow instructions precisely. Heed ’s point: fdisk will alter the partition table; back up any data before proceeding.

Recommended Answers

All 5 Replies

Member Avatar for cguan_77

if you're using the bootable win 98 se installer, just load it and configure BIOS to boot from CD and let the installer do the partitioning and formatting

Member Avatar for bobbyraw

try setting the jumper to cable select, and do as CGUAN suggest

Member Avatar for Salim9

Hey dont mess with this function ... is what i recommend too much experimentation with this command can lead to hard disk crash .... happened to me :( ..!!!
Just let windows do the partitioning !!!

Member Avatar for darsh999

Hey salim . u r rite .. happened to me once tried alot of tweaks on my pc and ended up with a crashed HDD .... :( ... So play safe !!!

Member Avatar for caperjack

Hey dont mess with this function ... is what i recommend too much experimentation with this command can lead to hard disk crash .... happened to me :( ..!!!
Just let windows do the partitioning !!!

the crash can mean different things to different people ,i've used fdisk for years, even in my early learning years and never crashed a hdd.,wiper out the wrong partition a few times but that about it ,what do mean crashed

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