Tech: lost hard drive ?

Subject: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 03:51 PM

I've just added some new equipment and need some advice.
Computer is a Windows PC running WinME, with a CD-writer/DVD Rom drive and a 30GB Hard Drive. The 30BG is split into three partitions, C:Windows/D:Data/E:Programmes.
I've just added a DVD burner and a 120GB (UDMA/ATA133) second Hard Drive. I put the original CD and Hard Drive on primary IDE controller. The new drive and DVD burner are on the secondary IDE controller.
The DVD burner reads and plays CDs okay. The computer set-up recognises the new hard drive, but Windows is totally ignoring it.
Any ideas what I need to do to get windows to admit it is there?
Quack!
Geoff the Duck.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 03:56 PM

Georff - has the new drive been partitioned and formatted?

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 03:58 PM

fdisk and format it.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From:
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 04:37 PM

Ummm, It's on the Primary Channel you said, but is it the Slave drive? Oh! Perhaps both the CD and the Hard Drive are both thinking they are the Master Drive? And The CD is in Position 1?

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Bert
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 04:43 PM

Is it plug and play? if not take it back and get one that is. I had similar problems with a mail order drive. never did get it to work even aftr spending hours on the phone to both the maker of the drive and Microsoft.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 05:17 PM

Do you have to map to it so your OS knows it's there? If ME doesn't provide any troubleshooting on this, check the Microsoft Knowledge base about Drive Mapping within that OS.

NEVER format a disk until you have exhausted all of the other possibilities. And then given the matter some more thought.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 05:25 PM

Hi Geoff,

Ideally you should instal your hardware as follows

Primary IDE:- Hard drive as primary master, CD as primary slave.
Secondary IDE:- Hard drive as secondary master, DVD as secondary slave.

In each case this will work best with the hard drive at the end of the ribbon cable.

Also go into BIOS setup, and, and make sure that all four IDE channels are set to AUTO, as you quite often find that they are set by default to NONE.

That should work, but bear in mind that it may change your drive letters.

All I can tell you for sure is that it worked for me.

Let us know if it does, please.

Regards
Don T.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 05:32 PM

P.S. It may also need to be partitioned and formatted, but you can't do that until it is recognised. For Gods sake don't use fdisk to do that as fdisk automatically goes for C:

If you don't have access to Partition magic or similar, then temporarily instal the new HD as primary master and use a startup disk to fdisk it, then return to the layout above and format. Formatting isn't a problem with a new HD, as you can't lose data if there isn't any.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 06:12 PM

With a system as old as this I think the BIOS answer is the best starting place. Drive mapping probably sets the BIOS, but I don't remember if WinME is set up for that. I've been fooling with it in a network environment, and you aren't setting up a network.

To get to the BIOS, there is usually a DOS looking black screen and white text displaying the information for the command when the computer first starts--something along the lines of "press F-8 (or 10) to reach system setup." That's the BIOS. You have to be quick sometimes to catch that setting; if you miss it, turn off the computer and try again. (You don't need to let Windows set up all of its stuff before turning it off.) Move through the screens and selections with the tab, up and down arrows, and the escape key. There is always the question at the end if you want to save the changes and quit Setup--if you aren't sure if you got it right, don't save the changes and go through it again.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 06:14 PM

BTW: Using Partition Magic is an excellent way to manage your drives and is well worth the purchase price--but be sure you read the book before you start using it. You can mess yourself up if you don't pay attention.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 06:23 PM

I attach a string to my hard drives so I don't lose them.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 06:23 PM

Just one question/ point. In his post, Geoff had said:

"The computer set-up recognises the new hard drive"

I had taken that to mean things like the BIOS were right. He continues:

"but Windows is totally ignoring it.
Any ideas what I need to do to get windows to admit it is there?"

Jon

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 07:08 PM

Just make sure you've got backups of EVERYTHING before you touch it... we lost the whole computer last year.. still haven't got everything back.... still hoping we can still get it.... sob!

LTS

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 07:57 PM

Well spotted Jon.
The setup escape before operating system load-up recognises the new hard drive. The settings were saved before exiting the utility.

Old hard drive plus old CD-rom drive are NOW on PRIMARY IDE conector. Original hard drive is "Master" and CD-Rom Drive is set to "Slave". Both appear to be working properly.

NEW DRIVES are connected to the Secondary IDE connector. Hard Drive is first in the chain and set to Master. DVD writer is second in the chain and set to Slave..

I have created the three partitions on the 30GB drive using Acronis Partition Selector. - I have not yet got around to booting using the Acronis Partition Selector utility to see what that finds.

As for formatting the drive - I assumed that it would appear as an existing "unformatted" drive (which I could then format) and do not understand why it does not appear.

Quack!
Gtd.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:12 PM

You are loosing me Geoff. I had taken the 30GB drive to be the old drive. Maybe I'm being stupid but please confirm: has the new drive had partitions set on it?

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:15 PM

(Windows will ignore a disk that is not partitioned in a format it recognises)

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Bensson
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:17 PM

a common installation recommendation!

Most computer systems today have two IDE busses that allow two devices each.

If you only have one CD-ROM and one Hard Drive, it is recommended that you install the HD on the Primary IDE as the Master and the CD-ROM on the Secondary IDE as the Master.

If you install additional Hard Drives or CD drives, keep the Hard drives on the same IDE bus, and likewise with the CD-ROM's.

If your system has two Hard Drives and two CD-ROM's,

you would have HD1 in the Primary Master position, HD2 in the Primary Slave position,

CD1 [Writer] in Secondary Master and CD2 [DVD] in the Secondary Slave position.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:17 PM

The 30GB drive is the original hard drive. It is split into 3 partitions - C:Windows - D:Data - E:Programmes.
It is the NEW Drive (120GB) which is being ignored. I am trying to figure out why...
Quack!
Gtd.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:20 PM

OK Geoff, that IS Why. The disk needs a partition on it before it will work for you.

Do you have a boot floppy?

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Bert
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:24 PM

That's exactly what heppened to me Geoff. Traded it in for a plug and play and it worked fine.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:30 PM

A couple of postings happened whilst I waa typing my replies.
OKAY...

1) - If Windows ignores an unformated drive - How am I supposed to get it instaled (in the machine) and then get it formatted?
Knoppix Linux (boots from CD without being installed) isn't spotting it either.
2) - Guest - Bensson - I will try putting both hard drives on the same connection with the new one as "Slave" and see if it makes a difference.
I'm off to sleep now, so will review advice and suggestions when time allows. (Tomorrow is Viking Festival in York (Jorvik) so might be out if rain holds off...)
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:30 PM

Geoff The route I would take is to boot to Dos with something with FDISK on and run that from the command line. If you want to play really safe, you could do as Don above suggests and temporarily have the new disk as the only hard disk on the system. Better if unsure than loosing everything.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:32 PM

Night All...
I'll look in late tomorrow....
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 08:37 PM

Geoff, Windows does recognise an unformatted drive but might not an unpartitioned drive. Partitioning is the step before formatting.

I am surprised that if the problem is as I've read it that Knoppix does not recognise it. I've not used it but would have expected it to find a disk on the system regardless of partition/format state.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 09:02 PM

Jon you are right about booting with the startup disk (I hope he made one, or the game becomes much more awkward), but fdisk only partitions C: as far as I know, which would erase all his software. It is essential to instal the new one temporarily as primary master, to fdisk it. Formatting can be done after returning the drives to normal.

Don T.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Feb 05 - 09:59 PM

Partition Magic is still a good answer. Install it on the old drive, on the primary partition, then have it set up the new drive. You can partition it and tell it what format you want (FAT, FAT32, NTSF, etc). You can also set up rescue disks (Boot Magic when PowerQuest ran it. Symantec may have changed it). Partition Magic is a powerful program and is money well-spent.

(I also see a link for a free trial download).

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 01:58 AM

It is years since I needed to fdisk a drive - are you really SURE that there is not an option to set which physical drive to work on BEFORE starting the actual fdisk procedure? If the drive is not being recognised at all on start up (which has its own set of trouble shooting procedures) then of course the second drive won't be there for fdisk to play with.

Also - in the modern BIOS, there is often an auto detect - which if you set the BIOS to give you verbose text messages on boot-up - which will tell you if it is seeing and recognising the drive (and what it is) or not. Also - depending on the age of the BIOS you may have to muck around with LBA settings to talk to a 120 Gb drive....

Sorry about the string comment before... one of the Fooles Troupe got access to the PC...

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 03:56 AM

You may not be able to see the new HD in WinExplorer, but should check and see if it's visible in Device Manager. If it's visible in WinME - Control Panel - Device Manager, you should be able to do a partition and format with built-in WinME utilities.

If this is a new Hard Drive and is pre-formatted FAT32, WinMe should be able to USE a single partition up to 2 TB, but if you need to reformat WinME CANNOT FORMAT a partition larger than 32 MB, so you'll need to partition it (assuming you can find it), or use a "third-party" program. Hard drives sometimes come with a disk that has an "extended capability" format utility.

NOTE: No Windows version, including WinXP, can do a NEW FORMAT in FAT32 of a partition larger than 32MB. If you have a larger pre-formatted FAT32 drive and want to use it all in one FAT32 partition, you should NEVER attempt to reformat using Windows built-in utilities. Larger partitions must be formatted as NTFS in order to use the Windows utilities for setup, and earlier Win versions may not be able to read an NTFS partition.

A somewhat "exotic" problem sometimes occurs if you move a Hard Drive from one computer to another, or during upgrades to WinME. If the drive came from a machine that had TweakUI installed, Tweak allows you to "hide" a drive. Even if the drive wasn't hidden on the earlier machine, or prior to an upgrade to WinME on the same machine, if TweakUI was present on the former system occasionally the drive will appear to have the "hidden" attribute set when WinME looks for it, so it won't display in WinExplorer. You should still see it in Device Manager. Mickey's suggestion is to install TweakUI on the new WinME and unhide it.

When you add a CD or DVD drive, occasionally the new drive isn't immediately visible. This isn't your exact problem, but if you've swapped leads around on the IDE controller it might be similar. WinME still allows "Real Mode" drivers that can access a drive directly. It also can (and should) use "Protected Mode" Drivers that make all hardware access through Windows. IF two similar devices are installed and one uses a Real Mode driver while the other uses a Protected Mode driver, WinME assumes you have two drivers installed for the same drive. It assigns the same drive letter to both drives. WinME will normally open the Protected Mode driver first, so the "other drive with the same name" is never visible. The normal fix is to go into Device Manager and manually assign a new drive letter to one of the devices.

If your new HD is a recent model, and a capacity of 120GB suggests it is, it should have come preformatted. Partitioning and reformatting should be "last resort" things to do. The only format that can be applied by Windows for partitions over 32MB is NTFS. Because of cluster size round-off, using Windows FORMAT on a "120GB" drive will likely get you less than 100GB usable, instead of the original usable 114 GB or so. With larger drives, a 160GB may drop down to 116GB or so.

As several have suggested, the most likely problem is that your BIOS setup needs to be adjusted to recognize the new Hard Drive.

The above are just "but maybe" thoughts about some known other possibilities.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: nutty
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 10:32 AM

Geoff .... I know very little about what you have been trying to do but the tutor on my beginners computer maintenance course has recommended this site ..... just thought it might help

PCTechGuide

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 11:27 AM

Now that you have 4 drives inside the case, I urge you to find some way to monitor the case or CPU temperature. If the case is poorly cooled, you may need to add extra cooling to preserve the chips in the new drives. I lost a couple of drives before I identified and solved the problem. In my case the answer was Kingwin mobile racks made of aluminium with extra cooling fans. It brought the temperature down by more than 10º F.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 08:43 PM

Ahh - all that stress is affecting my brain... it just takes longer to remember...

When I got my second hand machine last year, it came with 2 disks formatted and WIN2000 installed. Win98SE fdisk had no problem seeing both disks, and switching between them.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Feb 05 - 08:51 PM

Win2000 is a lot smarter and more stable than WinME. It was WinME that drove me to a dual platform for a number of years. I finally ditched it altogether. In my opinion, WinME is the weak link in this entire operation.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: GUEST,Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 11:39 AM

Thanks for all the suggestions so far. It looks as if the problem might be the drive not being partitioned.

John on Kansas - I couldn't find a "Device Manager" within Control Panel, but found System Information via the "Start Menu" [ Start - Programmes - Accessories - System Tools - System Information... ]. This gives me the "Microsoft Help" screen. In the section the "System Summary - Components - Storage - Disks" Gives me :-

Description        GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE47
Manufacturer        (Standard disk drives)
Model        IDE DISK TYPE47
Media Loaded        Yes
Media Type        Fixed hard disk media
Partitions        3
Size        28.63 GB (30,736,613,376 bytes)
Partition        Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size        12.18 GB (13,078,162,944 bytes)
Partition        Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size        13.41 GB (14,394,240,000 bytes)
Partition        Disk #0, Partition #2
Partition Size        3.03 GB (3,257,210,880 bytes)
        
Description        GENERIC IDE DISK TYPE80
Manufacturer        (Standard disk drives)
Model        IDE DISK TYPE80
Media Loaded        Yes
Media Type        Fixed hard disk media
Partitions        0
Size        114.50 GB (122,942,324,736 bytes)

                     **************************
I presume this tells me that it recognises that the second hard drive is there, but is not yet partitioned.

I'll post again when I have done some more checking of things.

Nutty - that link you gave seems to contain useful stuff - I will read it carefully before doing much else.
Quack
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 12:37 PM

How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk has a fairly complete "official Mickey" description of setup for hard disks and is old enough to include WinME instructions. While repartitioning (fdisk) and reformatting should normally be a last resort, it does look like WinME is telling you there's no partition defined on your one drive. There is quite a bit of description of system and setup requirements at the link that may help you if you read carefully before you start actually doing stuff.

Others should note that the above instructions may not apply fully if you have an OS later than WinME.

I don't have a Win98 system up due to a graphics card blowout, so it's difficult to verify much about older systems.

A typo in the previous post:

NOTE: No Windows version, including WinXP, can do a NEW FORMAT in FAT32 of a partition larger than 32MB.

should have said 32GB of course.

Although that was stated in a couple of Mickey's KB articles, I'm finding some conflicts. WinXP can't format a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB by design, although it can read/write to one up to at least 2TB (and one source says up to 8TB). They assume that any partition larger than 32GB should be NTFS if you're running WinXP.

Early Win2K can't read/write to a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB, and forces you to NTFS for anything larger. That may have been fixed with one of the later Service Releases; but I can't confirm it (yet). As for WinXP, the preferred format for Win2K is NTFS, except for very small partitions, although either should run okay off a FAT32 disk.

Early Win95, versions bought in a box, can't read/write FAT32, but some OEM versions could. If you're stuck with FAT (FAT16) the maximum partition sizes are pretty small. Win95 Service Pack 1 possibly includes FAT32 capability, but finding info on the old OSs is getting harder all the time.

Win98 should be able to access FAT32, and later versions appear to have been able to format FAT32 partitions as large as (and maybe larger than) they could read. WinME is really just a "super Win98" and should be able to access a FAT32 drive; and it should be able to format "large partitions," although I'm seeing conflicting info on just how large "large" means.

If you use the Windows methods/tools built into your OS, it shouldn't let you do anything that will not be compatible with your OS. (Or at least it should warn you if you try to.)

John

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 01:20 PM

If it helps, my system, before I changed to XP, ran 98SE. I had no problem installing a 60Gb HDD, and both partitioning and formatting same during installation of the OS, using Win 98Se's own format command. I don't know where the 32Gb limit comes from, but I didn't find it so.


Don T.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 02:21 PM

Hi All! Back again.
OKAY.....
I found my Acronis OS Selector floppy disk, which allows me to access its disk management tools. It looked at the new drive and told me that there were no partitions on it. I used its tools to create a new partition (20GB) and then booted up into WinME. Acronis OS Selector allows you to create partitions and format them into a variety of file systems used by Windows, Linux and other operating systems. It also will resize, copy or move partitions. A useful tool....
The new partition was recognised by Windows Explorer as a 20GB hard drive.
Of course just to be awkward it has decided to call it Drive:D and rename my D: and E: partitions to E: and F: respectively, which meant that all shortcuts and the like were to a different drive letter than the one they should be looking on. As a result a lot of things stopped working, but at least I have established what the initial problem is due to.
I have now deleted the new partition and my computer has returned to normal - as you can see ;0)
I'll have a think about my next steps to get the system running with an added second hard disc.
Thanks to all for your help so far.
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Mrs.Duck
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 02:54 PM

Excuse the thread creep but just thought I'd say hello der as you have been upthere ALL day.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: robomatic
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 03:08 PM

I have not used WinME for some time as tho it is not as bad as a lot of people say, it is much less convenient than either Win2000 or WinXP, particularly in dealing with media files and large HDs. I know that Win2000 and WinXP do not handle larger partitions (above 137GB) without having their Service Paks installed (SP4 and SP1 respectively). Be careful that your WinME is set up to handle your maximum partition choice as it is an 'older' system.
Also I think there is a way to force Windows to maintain letter identification to your pre-existing drives so that it will give your latest partitions the higher letters.

Good luck!

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 03:29 PM

Personally, for look and ease of use I have regarded each new user interface since Win3.1 as a step downwards. They may be more "powerful" in computing power but the bloat factor makes everything slower, so I don't see much of a gain compared to the potential increase in power of the computer processors.

If anyone knows of the trick to force letters to remain fixed, please tell us how!
Quack!
GtD.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 03:49 PM

I remember reading that Win2000 is pretty rigid about letter drives compared to the other operating systems; in ME try going into the system tools in (start --> programs --> accessories --> system tools) and see if there is something in there to help you. When I used ME it used to crash all of the time, and always at the worst times.

Are you planning to back up this computer on the new big hard drive? Norton Ghost works well for that, and I seem to recall it has some limited partitioning ability. You might want to look into that program for both of these functions.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: nutty
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 03:59 PM

There's a tutorial on PC TECH GUIDE that deals specifically with installing a second drive ...... it might help

HERE

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 04:59 PM

FDisk, FAT32, format - in DOS. Check name of drive in BIOS or device manager before FDisk. To be sure (to be sure) before you boot to DOS, unplug the ribbon cable to the original hard drive, that way you can't hurt it, but FDisk should identify the drive you are about to work on, and having done thejob in September I am sure (but can't remember how) that it is possible to Fdisk things other than the C drive.

When I added the extra drive in September (it has since died, possibly due to heat in the removable hard drive caddy which had no self ventilation) I was very vexed to find that in 98 it is NOT possible to designate the new drive: it will automatically become D, so you may have to adjust references to things that were partitions above C on your old drive. In XP you can designate the new drive, and again I have done just done it for a mate, designating the new drive F and G, but it can be done from Windows. Details I found in the knowledge base, and cannot remember. I am pretty sure XP was the first version of Windows to permit such designation.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 05:01 PM

Instructions for "renaming" a CD-ROM drive in Win95 are given in KB article 121926. WinME should be similar enough, with some adjustment in the first couple of seps. Since Win95 allowed you to use real-mode drivers loaded from Config.Sys and/or Autoexec.bat or protected mode drivers loaded by Windows, it sometimes assumed the protected mode driver loaded for a second CD drive was for the same drive, and gave both CD drives the "same name."

The same general method should work for any drive.

quoting:

RESOLUTION
Assign the CD-ROM drive running in protected mode to a different drive letter.

You can change the drive letter of a CD-ROM drive by performing the following steps:
1. Click the Start button, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Double-click the System icon, then click the Device Manager tab.
3. Select the CD-ROM you want to change from the list, then click the Properties button.
4. Click the Settings tab.
5. In the Reserved Drive Letters section, set Start Drive Letter and End Drive Letter to the drive letter you want the CD-ROM to use. Click the OK button.
6. Click the Start button on the taskbar and click Shut Down. Then click Restart The Computer.
The CD-ROM drive letter should now be the letter you selected and the second CD-ROM should be accessible.

endquote.

Basically, you use Device Manager to assign to a specific drive the range of "names" it can use, and set both ends of the range to the same drive letter.

Win2K and WinXP allow a very similar assignment when you "mount" a drive from your LAN, and the customary selection there is to start at Z for mounted drives and work backwards for such drives.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 06:36 PM

That will, I assume, be useful in the future John, but here the problem is having a hard drive with partitions C,D,and E, then adding a further hard drive and wanting to call it F, so as not to have to re-point all links to the D and E partitions.

Your solution I think refers only to CD or DVD drives.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 07:13 PM

The KB note refers specifically to CD drives (DVD wasn't invented then?) but at least in Win2K and WinXP you can use the same method for any drive. I don't have an older system up to check it out, but you should be able to do the same thing for a hard drive in Win98 or WinME. Your hard drives should show once you get to Device Manager, and what you can do will depend on what options are offered.

The details may vary, but at least it suggests a place to look.

The older option was to put a bunch of SET commands in Autoexec.bat, and I believe WinME still lets you use one, but that can get really messy.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 13 Feb 05 - 07:52 PM

As far as I know - windows insists on the series -

A floppy1
B floppy 2 - whether it's there or not
C Drive 1 partn1
D Drive 2 partn1
E Drive 1 partn2 etc till it's all used,
then
Drive 2 partn2 etc till it's all used

then CD's, Imation 120 Mb drives, USBs, etc however it bloody wants...

You can force anything above the hard drives to another Letter (I do) as mentioned above.

So if you have 2 physical HDs, then don't set up everything until you have Disk 2 partn 1 recognised as D... you are just wasting your time otherwise....

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 12:24 PM

I wrote a posting this afternoon, but it seems to have got lost in transit.
I'll try it again later....
Quack!
GtD

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 01:09 PM

Foulestrope, you can alter the sequence in XP.

Whe I buy another hard drive we canplay the game and see if it can be done in 98 or ME, but my recollection is that the KB defintely siad it couldn't - except for CD and DVD as JOhn says.

What we need to test is whether John's system works for hard drives and hard drive partitions - the reason being that if it does, you can allocate the removable drive to Z, put backups on it, then remove it and leave it on the shelf, secure.

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 14 Feb 05 - 09:21 PM

Unfortunately I don't have a Win98 still up, due to a hardware wear-out. It's also been quite a while since I've done much maintenance on anything except Win2K and WinXP.

I do recall the fancy dance from way back in Win3.11 when you could use SET commands to "rename" drives so that the one that wanted to be D:\ would look like it was F:\ etc. Since you couldn't redirect to a drive letter that was in use, you sometimes had to set one to Z, set the other one to X, move the first one back to where the other one was, etc., all with a sequence of SET instructions in Config.sys and/or Autoexec.bat. Not really a recommended practice except for very simple cases.

Device Manager, or Hardware Manager, whichever you have, should let you specify the connection, or at least define a range for it, for any of the devices on the machine; but it's too long ago and the memory is too full of other stuff... I certainly can't argue with those of you who can actually look at it, and apologize if I gave you a goose - - - to chase.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: lost hard drive ?
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 15 Feb 05 - 05:03 AM

Why do Microsloth have to be so bloody mindedly awkward and inept. I uset to run a Commodore Amiga 1200 (bought about 12 or 13 years back). It handled ANY drive, disc or partition using a user defined name. You could call your drives logical names such as System, Work, Games or even Eric and the computer would remember which they were. You could use multiple floppy discs for data, and when the computer needed the data which the programme you were using had stored on a specific disc (e.g. "artwork" or "DTP") it would ask you to insert that specific disc.
It didn't matter where in the system something was, the operating system dealt with the name you had defined. You could run a programme which was on removeable media such as a floppy disc, or use a ZIP disc for all your Art or DTP related programmes. If it needed to use shared libraries or fonts which were on the system boot disc (or even stored on a separate named flopy disc) all you needed to organise was an "Assign" - a small script of a couple of lines which told the programme which disc to look at for the directory you needed (the computer would then ask for you to insert the "fonts" floppy).

I find it so primitive and backwards that a computer system is not capable of keeping the data and programmes you have installed in a logical relationship in cyberspace. I expect things to work sensibly, but Microsoft screw it up every time.

Rant over!

I've just had an idea I want to try out, so I'll report back if it works. Acronis OS Selector allows me to create "Hidden" partitions. I wonder what might happen to Drive Letters if I make partition one on this "New D: drive" a hidden "Invisible" partition. Might it shunt the "D:" back down to where it used to be? I'll see what happens and report back.
Quack!
Geoff.