MBR on second HDD?

Appreciate some assistance.

Trying to install a second hard drive and make it and extended partition with a logical volume.

Both HDDs (Seagate: 3.1GB and 1.7GB) are recognized by the CMOS and when the pc boots, but the second HDD (1.7GB) does not show up in My Computer as D:.

Partition Manager (Ranish) utility identifies a problem with partition on HDD #2: it says boot sector does not have valid info.

Does this drive need a Master Boot Record if it is going to serve as an extended partition with a logical volume?

Thank you for your help.

 

If you want the drive to show up as D:, you will need to fdisk it again. Remove any logical drives, then remove the extended partition, Then start over and create a Primary DOS partition. You can then create an extended partition and logical partitions as you like and it/they will be assigned drive letters using the standard DOS convention. The first will be assigned D: and the next will depend on whether or not your boot drive has more than one partition. If it doesn't the drive letters on the new partition will be, D:, E:, F:, etc. and the cd-rom will get the next available letter. You can assign the cd-rom to a different letter in Windows if you like but it won't change things in native DOS though. Don't forget to FORMAT all the new partitions you create.

HTH

btw, Your previous method should have made the drive show up as E: in My Computer, assuming you have a cd-rom drive. If it didn't show up at all, perhaps you forgot to format it.

 

drives

Echo Zephyr here but also 'member to "unhide" or "set active" if you use the Partition manager. I'm not onto this one. I use PQBoot Magic, an appy under PowerQuest Partition Magic, & also allows drive "Mapping" a very kewl feature Of course if ya use fdisk this doesn't matter, just create primary partition & set active

 

just create primary partition & set active

Not if the party wants what they wrote ( below ).

Trying to install a second hard drive and make it and extended partition with a logical volume.

The second HD does not need ( in this case does not want to have ) a Primary partition. A primary partition on the 2nd HD will mess any partitons ( if they do exist ) of the 1st HD.

BillyBob

 

opinion dif

And that's why we have an exciting culture here is computerville

 

Yes, it's always a matter of personal choice when setting up hard drives. I didn't mean to impose my preference on anyone and I should have stuck to what FZWG originally requested.

You can indeed create an Extended partition without creating a Primary Dos Partition first. In such cases the drive letter assigned will be the next letter available after all the boot drive partitions have been assigned. Then the cd-rom (if present) will get the next available letter, unless you elect to change it in the software in Windows.

Having said that, I misinformed FZWG when I added the comment that his drive should have shown up as the E: drive. I should have said the D: drive since he didn't mention having anything but a C: logical partition on his boot drive (actually didn't say that either, but it was implied). I failed to pick that up and now have set it straight.

I'm thinking all along the problem was lack of proper formatting on the logical drive he created in the Extended partition.

Perhaps he'll post back with his results and we can all satisfy our curiosity.

btw, I always create a Primary DOS partition since I usually end up wanting to boot the drive someday with the backup susyem I have. Another thing to consider is, although not having a primary dos partition on the second hard drive leaves the drive letter assignments on the boot drive alone, it leaves the second drive vulnerable to be scooted uphill when you add a another logical partition to the boot drive.

So...it's user's choice, consider the consequences and take the path you prefer FZWG.

 

Zepher

what FZWG originally requested.

That is what I went by also.

I see you do think ahead a little. I like it. With mutiple HDs it does require a little planning.

BillyBob

 

Thanks for your reply.

Tried Fdisk, Format, and a couple of utilities, all with no results. The BIOS recognizes the HDD, it is also recognized when the PC boots, but the HDD does not appear in My Computer.

When Fdisk is used to display partition info, it states: No partitions defined, no matter how many times it has been partitioned and formatted.

Partition Magic recognizes the secondary HDD, but when time comes to apply any changes to the HD, PM freezes. Ranish Partition Manager displays invalid IPL (Whatever IPL is?) The Seagate Utility did not change matters.

The jumper is set to slave, it is on the second connector of the IDE cable, etc., etc. The jumper on the Primary is set to Master, etc.

The clencher is that, if this HDD is used in a different PC, it shows up just fine. It is only when it is used as a secondary with another Seagate drive that it acts up. Aaaauuuggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

 

Here's a plan. Let's try installing that drive as a stand alone master. That way we can see if it's possibly just an incompatibility issue with its sister drive.

Here's the plan. If you are able to get it recognized in DOS as the boot drive you can run the FDISK /MBR command to restore the Master Boot Record from the backup copy. The MBR is normally only written when initially installing a drive and doesn't normally get rewritten when doing a routine FDISK and reformat. You have to force it by using the FDISK /MBR command. That command only acts on the boot drive, regardless of where you issue it from. That's another reason I'm suggesting that you install the drive as a stand alone boot drive. FYI, the IPL is a code sequence contained in the MBR along with the Partition Table and the initials stand for Initial Program Loader. Its job is to search out the active drive partition record and load its boot sector into memory for booting the OS contained thereon.

So here's my plan:

Pull the existing Master drive's cable off. Rejumper the defective drive as a Master. Reset the CMOS settings for single drive, auto detect. Attempt to boot the drive to a dos prompt. It probably won't boot since its not set active. If not bootable, then boot with a startup disk in the A: drive (from same OS as planned later) and run the fdisk command. Select large drive support. Check present drive info (I think its option 4) and see what is there. Based on what you saw, remove whatever partitions it has. Then select to create a Primary dos partition. Then create an extended dos partition using all available space. Then create a logical partition of maximum size. Set the partition active. Reboot with the disk still in the A: drive. Format the C: drive that is hopefully detected. Then run the SYS A: C: command and see that it reperts "System Transferred ". Remove the disk from A: drive and reboot. The c: drive should boot to a C:\ dos prompt. If so we have won a minor battle. Then you place the disk back in the A: drive and change directory to it. Then from the A:\ prompt type FDISK /MBR and press enter. You should see a slight pause but nothing will show on screen. If you get any message at all on screen, the command didn't work. We are asking it to rewrite the Master Boot record from a backup copy that DOS automatically makes. This hopefully will render the drive usable again.

Then, if all that goes as expected, you can reconfigure the drives back to what they were and see if all goes well. If so, we have won the war. If not, I doubt the drive will be usable on any system with any degree of safety. I certainly wouldn't trust anything valuable to it.

I have a drive that won't boot as a master but works well as a slave. You may have its opposite.

Good luck and post back any snags you hit along the way. I hope I didn't leave out any steps, its harder to type it out than it is to actually do it.

 

Aonther WAG.

Did the drive in question ever have any type of compression on it ?

If the answer is YES then I believe you can forget that drive.

Compression has to be removed by the same software that installed it.

When you ran FDISK did you check for any NON-DOS partitions ?

BillyBob

 

Actually, compression doesn't render a drive unusable. It just makes recovering any data thereon impossible unless you use the software that created it.

Since that isn't an issue, the procedure I have outlined will obliterate ALL partitions on the drive, DOS and non DOS alike, and is commonly used to recover a disk that has been compressed. It will also recover a disk that has had a Drive Overlay installed.

I should mention that there is another FDISK command that will allow redirecting the MBR repair and have it address a drive other than the boot drive but I'll not muddy the water until it's needed.

This sort of project is difficult when done remotely like this, but I'm sure we can finally get a handle on it. The drive may indeed be unrecoverable but it would have to be a hardware problem if that is so.

Regards

ps Here are some links for reference:
Google and

Another More Specific

 

I have a drive that won't boot as a master but works well as a slave.

I have not run into that problem with a hard drive but I have run into it with a CDROM that refused to work properly as a Master.

In fact it is the CD RW that I have right now. It would not work properly when set as a Master on the 2nd controler. But as a slave to the Master Harddrive it works fine.

But on the other machine it worked just fine as a Master on the 2nd controller.

Go figure.

Anyhow. I just tossed in the idea of compression for ( as I stated a WAG ). By doing so, sometimes we just happen to stumble onto something. And by being only 1.7gig the drive does indeed have some age on it.

This sort of project is difficult when done remotely like this

Very difficult.

Then the cd-rom (if present) will get the next available letter, unless you elect to change it in the software in Windows.

That is the first thing I do when installing Windows. I set the CDROM up to S: so that it does not get messed up if I change partitions in any way. I have been doing that since way back in the days of DOS/Win3.1

BillyBob

 

Thanks for the replies.

Printing the info and giving it a whirl. This HDD issue sure is baffling.

The HDDs involved are both Seagate:
Medalist 3221 Model ST 33221A Ultra ATA (3.2GB), and,
Medalist ST 31720A (1.7GB)

Maybe it's an ATA "thing ". Not quite sure of what the dates are on the two HDDs.

 

More info.

Took a look at My Computer, Device Manager, and when the second HDD (ST 31720A) is connected (slave), the Primary IDE Controller (dual fifo) has a yellow exclamation mark.

Further, the Performance tab states: (1)Drive C is using MS-DOS compatibility mode file system (2)Compatibility-mode paging reduces overall system performance.

What significance does this have?

Autoexec. bat and config.sys are empty.

 

One thing that can cause that is having one drive set for DMA enabled and the other not. Worth a look in Device Manager under DISK DRIVES > highlight one > PROPERTIES > SETTINGS tab and see if the DMA box is tagged.

BTW, the command for refreshing the MBR on a drive other than the boot drive is FDISK /CMBR <drive number> so for doing the D: drive you would type, FDISK /CMBR 2 and it will rewrite the MBR on drive D: with the backup copy dos creates from day one. You can give that a try before going through all the rest, it can't hurt and just might make the drive recognizable.

 

Zephyr

Can we have lunch some time The tip on cmbr 2 is brilliant thx, I needed that back in win3.X days. Don't think will work in win-nondos-XP do you? Your Quote copied below

"Actually, compression doesn't render a drive unusable. It just makes recovering any data thereon impossible unless you use the software that created it.

Since that isn't an issue, the procedure I have outlined will obliterate ALL partitions on the drive, DOS and non DOS alike, and is commonly used to recover a disk that has been compressed. It will also recover a disk that has had a Drive Overlay installed."

Wow again, those hard drives utes that folks use (most should not) really give me fits in this "service biz" thx for the lessons

 

Thanks for all the help.

Tried all sorts of guidance provided in postings, and nothing has worked. Can't write down everything done: fdisk, fdisk /mbr, format, Debug, delpart, ZAPart, Seagate Utilities, NFDISC, Partition Magic, Ranish Partition Manager, whatnot.....bore you to tears.

However, did learn all sorts of stuff.

The only thing that DOES work is to remove the secondary HDD, and the pc then goes on merrily on its way doing its "thing" in W98SE.

"Gotta know when to fold it!" Can do without the secondary HDD. This is it.

Thanks again.