Thanks for the feedback on this.

Larry, The first checks I made were connections and power; all solid but
important to do the basics. The power supply is 350W, new a few months ago
when I replaced the MB. The fan has been running for several months w/o
problems. maybe it is too much load but it would seem that would cause the
fan to quit, not the HD. ???

[log in to unmask] offered: "No Fat32 could be a hard drive controller
failure". How do I check the drive controlers? Are they onboard the
Motherboard? Would that suggest a bad Mobo?


Jose E. Dominguez sugested:
You could buy the software the recovery companies themselves use.
I like the idea but ONTRACK sells a 'personal edition' for $179 and RUNTIME
sells for $159 and I really don't call that 'cheap' (maybe that shows how
cheap I am) but what bothers me most is being uncertain about what is really
failing. Would i be buying the correct software or just throwing money at
the problem?

Harlen suggests;
Put in a Windows boot disk in and boot the machine... run fdisk and select
"View partition info". I attempted to boot off the disc and it ignores the
boot disc I made from W98 cd and requests a bootable system disc. The boot
disc worked before so I don't know if it has gone bad (amazing timeing) or
??? Question: will running fdisk wipe out existing partions or data?

Thanks for helping me learn and understand.
Raymond

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