|there are photos that have not been backed up
| delphcommon
|
You forgot to use the word "precious".

|I have tried[...] 
|SYS c: and SYS a: c:
|both have returned bad command.
|
You need a bootable disk (floppy?) with a DOS 7 kernel in it (The Big 3).
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1131430898
The partition has to still exist as well.

|I have viewed partitions using fdisk and it says there are non,
|
{Sound of dirge in the background}

|why this is the case I have no idea
|as it has previously been working until this failure.
|
You were expecting an error message "3 days to HDD failure" ?  8-(
Does the drive have S.M.A.R.T. ?

|I have slaved it to my own, running xp pro
|and whilst device manager recognises the HD,
|I cannot view it or even locate it outside device manager.
|
{Sound of dirge draws closer}

|a virus check returned negative results.
|
...on a drive that can't be accessed.  Sounds contradictory.

|is the hard drive damaged?
|
It does sound like the filesystem is borked
--but you haven't convinced me yet that it's not an easy fix.

|could partitions be deleted in any way without knowledge of user?
|
Back in the days before Eastern Europeans realized
that Windoze boxes could be exploited to make money,
ALL the infections were malicious in nature.

It could also be a physical failure of the magnetic media in a crucial spot.

IF none of the 3 caveats apply, *this* might work:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/win98/1131430464
(Scroll down to see all the posts in the thread
or click [show all].)

The choices I see after that are:
1) Run the HDD manufacturer's (free) utilities.

2) http://www.google.com/search?q=SpinRite+Legendary
(Not really cheap; ask your nerd buddies if one of them has a copy.)

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