Win98 boot disk can't find 2nd hard drive

I agree. That's the reason I said good luck. I probably should have cautioned mikenowo a bit but he (she) stated that the c: drive was ghosted and I thought just viewing the web page itself would suffice. It seemed to for you. I kind of wonder if it'll work anyway as I'm guessing that with only XP installed it's most likely NTFS. All bets are off then.

Well, I've always done it that way up until now. I'm running xp and 98 with 98 on a primary partition (c drive) and xp on a logical partition (d drive) . I bought xp in March of this year and have been running it that way since without a problem from either OS. Neither one is hidden from the other and it's been smooth sailing. I was always under the understanding that problems that occured from having two OS's visible at once with win98 was because of the fact that there were two primary partitions visible, not because there were two OS's visible. Win98 doesn't always get along well with two primary partitions visible. It's my understanding that xp doesn't care what's there. Maybe I'm wrong but this is what I've come up with while reading about the subject.

As for the 7 meg partition, I don't know. I'm still using PM 5 too so I can't tell you if anything's changed in the program or not. I have seen this before however. Last year, on another computer, I was using PM to change some things and noticed a 7 meg partition that I had not created (not intentionally anyway) . I don't remember if it was a primary or not but I do remember I had a heck of a time getting rid of it. In the end I did but in all honesty I don't recall what I had to do. My brother also has one on his (still does) but this was before mine occurred and at the time he asked me about it, I just thought being it was an OEM machine it probably had to do with their recovery process. I'm not so sure anymore.

I wouldn't either!!!

 

WELL, Zander was right. I used that procedure and now I have win98 on F: and can boot to either Linux, WinXP or win98 (just had to floppy boot to linux after and re-run LILO to fix its boot sector).

Thanks for the input everyone All's well now!

l8r,

 

And I read and understand the same thing. Windows XP Pro is very different than any previous Windows. It will do things that would kill a previous version instantly.

This is where we need to be carefull when we are discussung Windows 98, XP, DOS etc. Because XP will do things that DOS or 98 will not

In fact we need to becareful at ALL times which version of Windows we are discussing. DOS is pretty much DOS, But Windows ain't. And discussing DOS in Windows we need to also be carefull about which Windows version we are referring to.

And when a problem is strickly a DOS setup problem which may include BIOS, cabling, Jumpers or partitioning/formatting problems leave windows out of the picture at the time.

Zander I believe you are correct. with XP each OS does not need to be on a hidden partition like other OS did.

Unlike XP, DOS and Win98 will not handle two VISIBLE Primary partitions. ( or at least not without problems ) I mistakenly tired it with 98. And then wondered why the machine would not boot.

I was going to try putting 98 on here with XP. Then I changed my mind. I have NO NEED for 98 on here. XP does all that 98 did. Maybe even better now that I have gotten used to it.

And right now if anything does go seriously wrong in XP all I gotta do is move two plugs about 1 inch and I have 98 back and raring to go. I myself much prefer that to Dual Booting.

I would be willing to bet that that partiton may have been ( and on an OEM very possible ) a NON-DOS partition whcih I believe can only be removed using FDISK. If I am going to repartiton a HD I usually use FDISK first to get rid of all partitions. And do a FDISK /MBR. Then I go to PM. And while doing all this the HD being worked with is THE ONE ONLY HD available. I s.c.r.e.w.e.d. up ONCE. That is enough.

I also have not ever used PM from within Windows. I have always used the DOS disks that it can creates. PM8 ( which I just download 53meg of last night ) makes them also.

Windows is good and does a lot more than it used to. But there are places that I still trust DOS more. And one place is when setting up a Harddrive. Even PM is in DOS then.

PM8 is something else. ( when run in Windows anyway ) From the DOS floppys it looks just like ( or very close to ) PM5.

mikenowo

Glad to read that you have things working. And I wish you good luck.

BillyBob

 

Since PQ Magic 6 that I have doesn't work in WinXP, I downloaded the v.8 evaluation version and have attached a snapshot of what the partition breakdown is of the 2 drives I have:

http://www3.sympatico.ca/mikenowo/temp/pqmagic_output.jpg


NOTE that the 2nd drive has that primary partition I spoke about that is unformatted/unallocated. REMEMBER that this time I created it using FDISK. I don't see this partition in FDISK itself, but in PQ magic (even v.8) it shows this primary as well as the extended (just to show you what I meant).

 

OK.

I could be way off base or wild A** guessing but. I would venture a guess that that is a NON-DOS ( or otherwise hidden ) partiton which will not show up in FDISK unless you tell it to show same. There is a choice in FDISK somewhere to delete NON-DOS partitions.

Because as I said before PM will not create one on its own. You have to tell it what you want. I saw this also in PM8 last night. it had set itslef up for LOGICAL drives. ( not a primary )

And another thought ( or question, your choice ) were you using PM from within Windows.

If so I have never found that to be reliable.

Set up your ( using good ol' fashioned pencil and paper ) plans that you want the HD for, Then put only that one HD in all by itself and use DOS for PM and of course FDISK to set it up that way.

With Windows XP more so than 98 there is way too much other stuff loaded that may give imporper reading.

I am very strong on the idea that Harddrives should be set up from STRAIGHT DOS From a power off boot up to a floppy and clean RAM. No Windows or anything else in RAM.

And I have found that once you get the HD setup in DOS Windows ( any version ) will handle it accordingly and very nicely. Any HD that Windows has had a problem with was because I messed up in DOS.

In the next day or two I will get the 40gig HD ready ( got it in all one chunck right now) and plug it in as a slave to my XP and see what it does. It will not be permenant as I do not need it. It will eventualy wind up in another machine for STORAGE only.

And last but not least. NO matter what software makers AND Microsoft say ( or would like us to believe ) EVERYTHING can NOT be done and done properly from within Windows. I tried setting one HD with PM from within Windows and had NOTHING but problems.

BillyBob

 

In comparison, here is what I get from "FDISK /STATUS "

Code:

***
Fixed Disk Drive Status
Disk   Drv   Mbytes   Free   Usage
  1          12624            100%
        C:   31989
        D:   22497
	E:   10001
              1004 (*-Linux swap partition)
             12661 (*-Linux 7.1 partition)
  2           7334       7    100%
        F:    7327

  (1 MByte = 1048576 bytes)

*- These 2 are Linux partitions (EXT2 format)
***

Note the 7 free MB on disk 2... that's what shows as the primary partition in PQ Magic.

 

No, not from within windows (like I said in the message before yours, PQM6 doesn't even run/work in WinXP). I finally used FDISK to delete and recreate the partition (from dos), YET PQ Magic still shows this primary partition. I specified in FDISK to simply create a logical partition, never asked for a primary.

 

Looks like we were walking on each other

Then that leads me further to belive that that is a NON-DOS partition.

A question that I should have asked before.

Did that HD possibley come from and OEM machine. ( ie: Dell, HP, Compaq etc ).

If so then I believe that might be the answer.

I believe Zander hinted at that possibility also.

BillyBob

 

Back again. Glad to hear it worked out for you. Guess I'll have to give it a try now that I know that it works. Now; if I can only find an unsuspecting guinea pig somewhere.....

Don't have a lot more to add except that I would agree that you should only run PM from the boot disks. Also, looking at the pic of your drive partitions, I see it's a bit different than mine was. My 7 meg partition was at the end of the drive (my brothers too). Mine wasn't an OEM machine however. Also partition magic showed it as being a fat formatted partition. I found this rather odd as all the other fat partitions I had were shown by PM to be either fat 16 or fat 32 (not just fat) . I could write to the partition and whatever I put there seemed to reside there just fine. Sure wish I knew what I did to put it there. This was a drive that I installed myself and had for a couple years before the odd partition showed up. To further muck up things, fdisk showed it as a non dos partition. How can that be? Windows could read from it or write to it. It didn't (and still doesn't) make any sense. Guess it doesn't really matter but this thread brought back old memories and re-tweaked my curiosity about it.