Help! WinXP can't tell that my 2nd hard drive is already formatted

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FitPhillyGuy

I recently bought a "bare bones" computer (Asus A7n8X Deluxe mobo,
Athlon XP 2500+ CPU, 512MB RAM, WinXP Home) and transferred my
existing hard and optical drives into it, from a much older computer,
where they had been working just fine (the drives themselves are much
newer than the other parts of the "old" computer).

I have 2 hard drives: my C drive (primary IDE Master) is a 20GB drive
with the OS and apps; the Slave drive is a 120 GB IBM Deskstar with
documents only. (Spare me the anti-IBM hard drive stuff, I know I
should have gotten a WD.) As noted, they worked fine for a long time
on my old system.

But after transferring the drives, I couldn't get the new computer to
boot up, I kept getting a screen where the nice people at Microsoft
apologized for my inconvenience and offered to launch Windows in Safe
Mode, or the last known good configuration, etc. None of the choices
worked.

I thought the problem might relate to the D drive: the BIOS recognized
the drive's existence but misreported its size as 33821 MB (way less
than its true 120 GB). Specifically, I thought the problem might be
caused by the software I had previously installed on the C drive in
order to make the D drive work--in my old computer, it had been
necessary to run a "Drive Overlay" program from IBM's web site to fool
the old computer's BIOS into thinking the drive was a lot smaller than
it really was, as the BIOS couldn't otherwise recognize the drive. I
figured this software might be both unnecessary, and perhaps harmful,
to the new computer.

Since I couldn't uninstall the Drive Overlay, I reformatted the 20GB C
drive. But the clean reinstall of Windows didn't solve the problem:
the BIOS still doesn't see the entire D drive, and Windows XP can't
access the data: it sees the drive, and Device Manager says the device
is working properly, but Windows thinks the drive is unformatted! I
upgraded my computer just so I could install a DVD burner to back up
my data, and now I can't access it at all. Any advice that would
involve me keeping all my data? The drive is nearly full of stuff I
value very highly, and I have no reason to believe it is truly
faulty... I tried other cables; don't really have access to another
computer to try the drive in.

If I bought an external enclosure and tried to connect the drive as a
USB device, could that help??

My eternal gratitude to whoever can help me...

Joel
 
I have 2 hard drives: my C drive (primary IDE Master) is a 20GB drive
with the OS and apps; the Slave drive is a 120 GB IBM Deskstar with
documents only. (Spare me the anti-IBM hard drive stuff, I know I
should have gotten a WD.) As noted, they worked fine for a long time
on my old system.

But after transferring the drives, I couldn't get the new computer to
boot up, I kept getting a screen where the nice people at Microsoft
apologized for my inconvenience and offered to launch Windows in Safe
Mode, or the last known good configuration, etc. None of the choices
worked.
Click to expand...

You *CAN'T* just move a hard drive from one computer and put it in another
and expect it to work. It *MIGHT* work for some, but definately a bad idea
to depend on it.

Back you data up to another location, move your drives an reformat/install.
 
: I recently bought a "bare bones" computer (Asus A7n8X Deluxe mobo,
: Athlon XP 2500+ CPU, 512MB RAM, WinXP Home) and transferred my
: existing hard and optical drives into it, from a much older computer,
: where they had been working just fine (the drives themselves are much
: newer than the other parts of the "old" computer).
:
: I have 2 hard drives: my C drive (primary IDE Master) is a 20GB drive
: with the OS and apps; the Slave drive is a 120 GB IBM Deskstar with
: documents only. (Spare me the anti-IBM hard drive stuff, I know I
: should have gotten a WD.) As noted, they worked fine for a long time
: on my old system.
:
: But after transferring the drives, I couldn't get the new computer to
: boot up, I kept getting a screen where the nice people at Microsoft
: apologized for my inconvenience and offered to launch Windows in Safe
: Mode, or the last known good configuration, etc. None of the choices
: worked.
:
: I thought the problem might relate to the D drive: the BIOS recognized
: the drive's existence but misreported its size as 33821 MB (way less
: than its true 120 GB). Specifically, I thought the problem might be
: caused by the software I had previously installed on the C drive in
: order to make the D drive work--in my old computer, it had been
: necessary to run a "Drive Overlay" program from IBM's web site to fool
: the old computer's BIOS into thinking the drive was a lot smaller than
: it really was, as the BIOS couldn't otherwise recognize the drive. I
: figured this software might be both unnecessary, and perhaps harmful,
: to the new computer.
:
: Since I couldn't uninstall the Drive Overlay, I reformatted the 20GB C
: drive. But the clean reinstall of Windows didn't solve the problem:
: the BIOS still doesn't see the entire D drive, and Windows XP can't
: access the data: it sees the drive, and Device Manager says the device
: is working properly, but Windows thinks the drive is unformatted! I
: upgraded my computer just so I could install a DVD burner to back up
: my data, and now I can't access it at all. Any advice that would
: involve me keeping all my data? The drive is nearly full of stuff I
: value very highly, and I have no reason to believe it is truly
: faulty... I tried other cables; don't really have access to another
: computer to try the drive in.
:
: If I bought an external enclosure and tried to connect the drive as a
: USB device, could that help??
:
: My eternal gratitude to whoever can help me...
:
: Joel


MY guess is Xp sees the 120gb drive as a 32gb fat32 type drive and that you
will need the overlay software to make it recognizable to XP XP thinks
anything over 32 gigs is formatted NTFS and acts accordingly. I would search
the MS knowledge base and see what you can find also the IBM (now Hitachi I
think) data base for tips. XP has a how to move from your old computer help
file which might give you some pointers. Don't panic the data is most
likely ok. Just be patient and approach the problem logically. Once you
get into reformatting your into big money to recover the data
You might also consider one of the many disk utility packages around. I
don't know any of them so I can't say which does what but there's lots out
there many as free demos.

claus
 
The Overlay that you have installed on that second drive, might be causing
problems, my suggestion is to use a boot disk with fdisk on it, and when it
boots, switch to the big hard drive, and run this command fdisk /mbr. that
will erase the master boot record and get rid of the overlay, then xp more
than likely can find it, and the bios might be able to as well.
 
Update WinXP to the first update and that might help with the larger
drive. Hopefully you do not have a drive overlay on the old drive. Make
sure you have also updated the motherboard with the Nforce2 Chipset
Drivers. Check the BIOS to see if LBA is turned on. Large Block
Addressing. Try running the drive overlay program again for it to copy
the data over to the other drive.

You should go to the Hitachi Site and get the drive utility to write Zeros
to the entire drive. This will allow you to get rid of the overlay
program.
 
Phrederik said:
You *CAN'T* just move a hard drive from one computer and put it in another
and expect it to work. It *MIGHT* work for some, but definately a bad idea
to depend on it.
Click to expand...

Of course you can, if it's a slave drive (Not housing the OS). I've done it
dozens of times with no problems.
Back you data up to another location, move your drives an
Click to expand...
reformat/install.

Whatever.

Everybody here seems to be missing the point that the BIOS isn't ID'ing the
drive correctly. Either the drive was damaged (It wasn't dropped was it?) or
maybe the BIOS might need updating.

Getting the BIOS to ID the drive correctly seems to be the answer. I assume
the drive is jumpered correctly to slave? (if it is in fact slaved on the
primary IDE channel). Check your jumpers, check your cables are seated
correctly. If the drive is primary slave try moving it to secondary master.
Check the jumpers on your optical drives as well.

Then get back to us.
 
Everybody here seems to be missing the point that the BIOS isn't ID'ing the
drive correctly. Either the drive was damaged (It wasn't dropped was it?) or
maybe the BIOS might need updating.

Getting the BIOS to ID the drive correctly seems to be the answer. I assume
the drive is jumpered correctly to slave? (if it is in fact slaved on the
primary IDE channel). Check your jumpers, check your cables are seated
correctly. If the drive is primary slave try moving it to secondary master.
Check the jumpers on your optical drives as well.

Then get back to us.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like the drive has it's capacity jumper used.


Dave
 
Sorry it's taken me so long to read the replies to my own posting. I
was experiencing unrelated technical difficulties.

The idea that this is an overlay-related problem sounds plausible to
me (which is a really stupid thing for me to say, considering how
pathetic my tech knowledge is). There definitely WAS overlay software
being used in my old system; when I transferred the drives, I
reformatted the master drive (the 20GB C drive with Win XP on it) and
did not reinstall the overlay software because I thought that the
whole idea of the overlay was to compensate for limitations in the
BIOS (rather than in Windows XP itself), which shouldn't be an issue
if you have a fairly new computer with an up to date BIOS. I really
don't fully understand how this overlay stuff works so an explanation
would help.

Charles, You suggest running the overlay software again, is there any
danger that this will aggravate my problems? Is this risky?

FYI, I am running XP with ALL the critical (and not-so-critical)
updates, so my OS is truly up-to-date. And the BIOS is not perfectly
current but it's pretty darned current (it's a very new model of
motherboard, BIOS dates from spring 2003). I am running the current
nForce 2 drivers.

Also, as recommended by someone else, I did indeed try hooking up the
big drive as a master drive on the secondary IDE channel, with no
luck. (Good suggestion, though.)

Thanks for the suggestions, any further advice will be duly
appreciated.

Joel
 
Sounds to me like the drive has it's capacity jumper used.


Dave
Click to expand...

Dave, what's a "capacity jumper"?? I of course have it jumpered as a
slave; without pulling the drive out of the case (I screwed it back in
there) I can't recall what the sticker on the drive showed as far as
other jumper positions but I remember there were many options (not
just M, S or CS). What is the capacity jumper?

Oh, and just to be clear, I never dropped it...I treat my drives with
tender loving care...

Joel
 
Keyan Farlander said:
The Overlay that you have installed on that second drive, might be causing
problems, my suggestion is to use a boot disk with fdisk on it, and when it
boots, switch to the big hard drive, and run this command fdisk /mbr. that
will erase the master boot record and get rid of the overlay, then xp more
than likely can find it, and the bios might be able to as well.
Click to expand...


I'm confused: Charles though I should reinstall the overlay software,
you think I need to wipe it out. Which is it? I'm not trying to be
snotty, I truly don't know, this whole overlay thing mystifies me.

Your thoughts did, however, inspire me to check the MS Knowledge
Base--and gave me good ideas about what to search for. "Problems with
Drive Overlay Programs in Windows XP" (article 315679)says NOT to run
fdisk /mbr: I may wipe out my data. It also says that the problems
I'm experiencing are "by design". Thanks, Bill. Microsoft suggests I
back up my data and reformat my hard disk. Yeah, right. Thanks
again, Bill. So running fdisk is out.

And I can't run the overlay software again, I don't seem to have a
copy of it and Hitachi (which took over IBM's hard drive business)
says it's not needed under XP, so they don't have it at their web
site.

Sigh.
 
Dave, what's a "capacity jumper"?? I of course have it jumpered as a
slave; without pulling the drive out of the case (I screwed it back in
there) I can't recall what the sticker on the drive showed as far as
other jumper positions but I remember there were many options (not
just M, S or CS). What is the capacity jumper?

Oh, and just to be clear, I never dropped it...I treat my drives with
tender loving care...

Joel
Click to expand...

See this (or the original user's guide, or the one on IBM's website):
http://docs.us.dell.com/docs/storage/p34981/jumpers.htm


Dave
 
I'm confused: Charles though I should reinstall the overlay software,
you think I need to wipe it out. Which is it? I'm not trying to be
snotty, I truly don't know, this whole overlay thing mystifies me.
Click to expand...

Your new system does not need, should not use the overlay. The same
software that installed the overlay (or the equivalent newer version
of it) offered by IBM should also remove it. Of course I'd expect any
data on the drive to be gone after removing the overlay if it was the
boot drive (and so it was loading that overlay).

Your thoughts did, however, inspire me to check the MS Knowledge
Base--and gave me good ideas about what to search for. "Problems with
Drive Overlay Programs in Windows XP" (article 315679)says NOT to run
fdisk /mbr: I may wipe out my data. It also says that the problems
I'm experiencing are "by design". Thanks, Bill. Microsoft suggests I
back up my data and reformat my hard disk. Yeah, right. Thanks
again, Bill. So running fdisk is out.
Click to expand...

If the drive has the overlay, you need to backup the data first, then
remove overlay, partition and format... this is the kind of situation
that causes many people to recommend avoiding the overlay in favor of
a motherboard BIOS update (when applicable) or a PCI IDE controller
card.
And I can't run the overlay software again, I don't seem to have a
copy of it and Hitachi (which took over IBM's hard drive business)
says it's not needed under XP, so they don't have it at their web
site.

Sigh.
Click to expand...

It's just not linked there, but see here, they worked just a moment
ago when I downloaded 'em:
http://www.chicorporation.com/support/IBM.html


Dave
 
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