hardrive not recognized

You should be able to get them from the motherboard site.

Mike

Geeze this is turning into a bear! But even if we were doing a new clean install all of these would be needed.

 

Hi Mike....sry for long absence....had commitment last nite. Went back & re-read the post withthe boot diskette ref. I missed it with all the other info flowing yesterday.

I've made the dskts now & keep them in reserve.

I've made some progress with the install formthe Upgrade W2KPro CD Iborrowed. It will notrecognize the CD. Whn I can get to a pulldwn windo I see C D (contents of old C)
E (contents of old D
F (contents of old E

G

 

Sky

Either you have some non standard CD's or (which could cause an install problem) or you have the wrong disks. Go back and get the other sites boot disk. Make sure they are for w2k pro.

If that don't work the get the Mad Disk at
http://www.madboot.com/

Get the 7.04 Beta

Careful with this one is good but has selections to fdisk and format etc. It is clear. But select to install 2K pro. Then as the other instructions, do not chose the first repair but chose to install then when it finds the current 2K then chose repair.

Mike

 

Mike......Some semblance of victory. I tried so many times to folow Laage's directions to install & then repair, but with a lot of pain, so I bit the bullet & reinstalled WIN.

UI have most of my system built, but am still wondering about those changed drive letters. When I boot I also get a choice of booting Win@kPro on either C or D. So I choose C & keep rebuilding & making a repair disk each time I make changes.

I'm copying all my data to the second physical drive....G, so if I get another failure, at least I can remove the 2nd physical file & install in another case & keep going with the data.

Any advice on how to deal with these drives?
I can read the info on all of them.

 

All right!

I don't understand what you mean by all those drives! You now have a dual boot it sounds to me.

Get them both working and you will be better off because if 1 fails the other may work.

I have 2 myself. They are completely seperate as are yours.

But as for what you mean by all these drives????

Which computer are you talking about. Office or first machine we started on.

All Laage was saying.
1. Don't use the first r to repair
2. Chose install
3. when it finds existing windows it will
a. offer to reinstall to that drive or
b. offer to install to another drive or
c. just repair the one it found!!!!


Mike

 

This is the Office machine.


I used to have 2 physical drives partitioned into C D E
and a second physical drive F


Now I have an addiotanl drive C & it seems that the info on old D is now on new E....etc. I can't firgure out where the new C drive has come from.


I did try Laage directions to the T, seveeral times, but as the CDrom drive was not addressable, I was painfully copying files to dskt & installing. for the repair process. Once I got the downloaded boot disk to work I tried the install then repair again......still no working system, so I punted & installed new.

When I have this working, I will try to boot to the OPSYS on D just to see what's there. I have no problem with a dual boot system, but both C & D are ont he same physical drive, so not sure if that's wies/usefully???

 

I can! Now.

The second drive was originally by itself. It was partitioned as a Primary partition. It should have been reformated as a secondary partition.

When you have 2 drives with 2 primary partitions the 2 primarys come first and secondary partitions will come after even tho they are not on same physical drive.

Had you disconnected the second drive to do the install you would not have had these problems with the CD install etc.

If 2k had been installed on the drive by it self and later the other drive was reconnected it could handle it.

But install was seeing one drive alignment 2K was seeing another!

Mike

 

Being on seperate drives would be better but not nessesary. Both should work normally.

Just remember they are completely seperate.

Anything you want on both will have to be installed and set up on both.

Mike

 

Log sawing time for me......................

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Mike

 

Well Now i understand what may have caused the problem. I tried to do a defrag & 'dsicovered' that the first drive (originally CDE) is now CEF and the second drive is now D & G.


Regardless of this mess, I actually used the machine today, DSL working & all. NAV2003 wasn't working. I tried to copy all of my dta files from the 1st drive to the 2nd, so I could always remove it & maybe install a new OPSYS on the 1st drive.

As my printer is daisychained ot my Iomega Zipp 100 & the printer isn't woking I htought I'd download the latest IOMEGA stuff & install & issue the guest command to get a printer. Well the download worked & I rebooted, restart OHMY The boot kept starting the windows installer task & asking ofr the NAV CD to try to run the NAV install task, so I pointed to the task on the CD & ran it. NAV2003 is now NOT working as the EMAIL & auto-protect are set off. (though they worked Sunday & I did a full system scan & downloaded the latest virus def'ns.

So the config has regressed. I also noticed that IE is only Ver 5, though I did down;load SP6 & Install it on Sun. Don't know why it's regressed also.

I did notice when comparing to another W2KPro system I'm surrently using, that the working machine has only c:\windows folder yet the office machine has C:\winnt\ as the folder in which the system funciotns are installed.

I also noticed that the $nt......files (that I think contain the win updates) are in the C:|WINDOS folder there si also a windows update setup files folder which contains what looks like 3 apps & some read me's referencing IE 5.5 updates.

I feel like running those 3 apps to see if I can get IE updated, but why do that if the OPSYS is confused.

Then another thing happened. Yesterday I couldn;t get to the web & checked the services, they were ALL disabled, so I rest P&P & then I could see the DevMgr result.

ANYWAY......I'm very tired of fiddling with this without a real plan as how I get it stable so I can work. A miracle that it worked all day today I should have stopped but neede the printer & also need to get other apps working.


Hopefully all this information may give you a hint as to what may have happened & help you develop a plan. Sorry to lean on you so hard, but I have no local person who I can count on for advice. Local computer stores may have less knowledge thatn I and say "Buy a new machine ".


Thanks for listening & advising.

The only plan I can suggest (fomr no knowledge) is unplaug the 2nd drive as it now contains all my data & format the first drive & reinstall W2k. Hubby oringally loaded the drive by installing ME & then updating to W2KPro, so it may be possible.


I'll wait for U to answer (If U're not scared off by this).

 

hmm.. drive identification is something that we think must be a constant. Think again...

We must keep in mind that when Windows is dual booted, it can change drive letter designations to suit its needs. (Generally switching the two that hold the OS's)

It can supposedly keep track of that and you'll never have any problems.

Yeah, right....

When it does get crossed up due to a mid-session crash while installing some software, we can only wonder what it's going to produce.

A recent thread questioned why anyone would ever need to re-format their drive and suggested that it was never really necessary. Their day will come too!

 

The Dual boot option only occured when I tried to install then repair the SYS. Check back about a million msgs, Zephyr.


U're right W2K has it's knickers in a knot. Do U have experience/ a plan for how I get out of this . PLEASE?????????

 

Yes PilotGal

I will try to help. But not tonight. Tired! Long day.

I will begin tomorow night.

The first thing we will do is move the data from the second drive to the first . Then we will blank (fdisk) the second drive. While it is blanked we will deal with the 1st drive as a single drive.

After we have the 1st drive booting correctly we will use 2k to rebuild the partitions on the second drive. Then move the original data back to this drive.

This is what we will need to do!

mike

 

Thx Mike...I'm quitting now 2.

The 2nd physical drive has little data on it. Mostly copies of what is on the first. I have partition magic also if that's a help.

Am I correct in assuming that FDISK on the second will wipe out the D drive & some of the confusion???

Trying to learn. & thx again.

 

Yes!

But it is good you have Partition magic. This is better.

Good night

 

This am I re-booted form the CD to try & get it to operate (limp) for the day. I chose INstall then repair is the option of C:\WINNT or C:\WINDOS whihc I didn't notice before.

Might it be helpfull to try to repair C;|windows before we do the fdisk?

Not trying to change U're plan, but give addiitonal info.

 

No PilotGal it will not hurt but....

When doing this it may not see the correct drive. Ask Sky he went thru this on the other computer.

If you attempt it do not chose the first R to repair but tell it to install. It will then find the existing install and offer to repair. Chose this repair.

Am delayed by snow but office opens at 10:00 so out of here for now.

Will check in this evening!

Mike

 

K I'll try it 2nite. Dentit & then office & skylane & I are same person, just depends on which machine I'm logged into.

 

Hi On the Office machine with DSL working. This owrks if I reload form the CD.

Tried to backup the data on old D to a CD, Nero burner would not create a data CD but would creat a backup of the old D (data ) drive. Installed EZCD & got

Win un\able to save all data for the file device\hardisk\vol5\program files\.......

Seems to be a prob with writing ot the G drive the 2nd hardfile
the G drive

 

Ok PilotGal

Had to work late!

If we can do this it has to be 1 step at a time.

First give me a status on what does and does not work.

The drives are not in order I already know, but how is 2k.

Then is there room on the first HD to copy everything from the second HD to the first?

At least the important things, if there is something you don't want or need leave it. Make folders and name them "old d" "old e" etc. We will put it back on the correct drive when we finish.

The one thing we must be sure of, is which partition is on which drive. Because the drives are out of order. We must be sure which is the 2nd HD before we deal with it.

So what is status?

And are you sure which drive letters are on the 2nd HD?

Mike