Missing drive designation

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Guest

I recently added a previously used hard drive to my system. It is configured
as a slave drive. I am unable to see the drive when or access any
information on it. When I run System Information it correctly identifies the
"disk" and its attributes and indicates it is working correctly. Compaq and
Western Digital diagnostics each also see the disk, correctly identify it's
attributes, tests it successfully, and indicate it is working correctly.
However, System Information does not see it as a "drive" and it does not show
up as an available drive in My Computer. It seems to be there and working
correctly but I can't get Windows XP Professional to give me access to it.
What do I need to do to get access to this drive?

Thanks,
 
I recently added a previously used hard drive to my system. It is configured
as a slave drive. I am unable to see the drive when or access any
information on it. When I run System Information it correctly identifies the
"disk" and its attributes and indicates it is working correctly. Compaq and
Western Digital diagnostics each also see the disk, correctly identify it's
attributes, tests it successfully, and indicate it is working correctly.
However, System Information does not see it as a "drive" and it does not show
up as an available drive in My Computer. It seems to be there and working
correctly but I can't get Windows XP Professional to give me access to it.
What do I need to do to get access to this drive?

Thanks,
Click to expand...

What does disk management say about the drive? (Administrative Tools>
Computer Management> Disk Management)

If the drive was previously monitored by GoBack, that software has left a
mark on the drive that needs to be removed before XP will be able to "see"
the drive.
 
Disk Management sees the second drive but does not list it with a drive path.
Disk 0 is shown as "C:" but Disk 1 does not have a volume disignator. If I
right click on it the option to assign a drive designator is greyed out.
Disk 1 is shown with two partitions. The first one is smaller, 31MB, while
the second is 74.47 GB. I assume the second one is the one with my data on
it. Is the first one the one used by Go Back? Can I just delete it? I
believe the Go Back program was part of a Norton Utilities App that I bought
years ago. I've used on-line updates for the last couple of years. I'm not
sure where the original disk is. Any ideas on what I need to do from here?
 
Disk Management sees the second drive but does not list it with a drive path.
Disk 0 is shown as "C:" but Disk 1 does not have a volume disignator. If I
right click on it the option to assign a drive designator is greyed out.
Disk 1 is shown with two partitions. The first one is smaller, 31MB, while
the second is 74.47 GB. I assume the second one is the one with my data on
it. Is the first one the one used by Go Back? Can I just delete it? I
believe the Go Back program was part of a Norton Utilities App that I bought
years ago. I've used on-line updates for the last couple of years. I'm not
sure where the original disk is. Any ideas on what I need to do from here?
Click to expand...

I asked about GoBack because a lot of Win98 machines came with that
preinstalled. Some users liked the idea of that program and even though it
didn't come with their computer, purchased a copy and installed it. Before
the drive is moved to a different system, one uses the GoBack menus to
remove the drive from GoBack's monitoring. If that is not done, XP cannot
"see" the drive to utilize it.

A lot of folks with a problem similar to yours fixed it by moving the drive
back to the Win98 machine, removing GoBack monitoring and then moving the
drive back to the XP machine.

However, from what you're saying, XP is seeing partitions on the drive:
two, in fact. So I think we need to look for another reason why the drives
aren't being listed throughout Windows. Anything else notable about the
drive? For example, was drive overlay software used so that the Win98
machine could use all of that hard drive? Or was it partitioned and
formatted using regular Win98 disk tools?

If no drive overlay software.... perhaps try downloading TweakUI for XP
(make sure you get the right version for the version of XP you are running
- check the sys requirements before installing). Go into the My Computer>
Drives section of the program and make sure there is a check next to all
drive letters.

If all else fails, try deleting one of the partitions on the drive - the
smaller one without your old data, perhaps - recreating it with Disk
Management and formatting it. If successful, repeat steps for the second
partition.

If worried about the data in that partition, you may want to drop the drive
back into the Win98 machine before making any changes to it. Grab the files
you want to keep, moving them off to other media. Then tackle the drive in
XP.
 
The drive in question was the original drive that came on a Dell PC with XP
already loaded. It was not connected to a PC running 98. Go Back was also
pre-installed on the drive by Dell. I have mounted the drive in an older
Compaq that is running XP Professional from its previously installed drive.
That is how I could see the partitions. I did go to the Symantic site (they
now own the Go Back rights) to see if they could help. From what I found it
appears this, or similar problems are common. Basically they say to shut off
or remove the Go Back program before moving it to another computer.
Unfortunately my Dell motherboard fried so I didn't get the opportunity to
remove it and I can't go back to it. By configuring the drive as the master
drive on the Compaq I do see the Go Back screen. I did that and was able to
disable the Go Back program. Unfortunately that didn't solve my problem.
Now when I boot up it doesn't run Go Back but goes right to the "Error
loading operating system" message and quits. I think I need to somehow
remove Go Back completely in order to get by it. But now I don't see it, nor
was there an option that I could see to remove it. Symantic does mention
getting a 98/Me startup disk to boot from and then run a program called
Gb_prog.exe which came on the Norton disk that came with the system. But
finding a 98/Me boot disk or the Norton disk will be a challenge. That will
be my next step.

If that doesn't work I'll get the TweakUI program you mentioned. Last
option will be to delete the partition. I can't put the drive back on the
old PC (it's dead) to copy off my files so I want to do all that I can to
preserve the data if possible.

Thanks a lot Sharon F for your help. While I haven't yet licked the problem
I at least feel there may be something I can do about it. Hope has value.
 
The drive in question was the original drive that came on a Dell PC with XP
already loaded. It was not connected to a PC running 98. Go Back was also
pre-installed on the drive by Dell. I have mounted the drive in an older
Compaq that is running XP Professional from its previously installed drive.
That is how I could see the partitions. I did go to the Symantic site (they
now own the Go Back rights) to see if they could help. From what I found it
appears this, or similar problems are common. Basically they say to shut off
or remove the Go Back program before moving it to another computer.
Unfortunately my Dell motherboard fried so I didn't get the opportunity to
remove it and I can't go back to it. By configuring the drive as the master
drive on the Compaq I do see the Go Back screen. I did that and was able to
disable the Go Back program. Unfortunately that didn't solve my problem.
Now when I boot up it doesn't run Go Back but goes right to the "Error
loading operating system" message and quits. I think I need to somehow
remove Go Back completely in order to get by it. But now I don't see it, nor
was there an option that I could see to remove it. Symantic does mention
getting a 98/Me startup disk to boot from and then run a program called
Gb_prog.exe which came on the Norton disk that came with the system. But
finding a 98/Me boot disk or the Norton disk will be a challenge. That will
be my next step.

If that doesn't work I'll get the TweakUI program you mentioned. Last
option will be to delete the partition. I can't put the drive back on the
old PC (it's dead) to copy off my files so I want to do all that I can to
preserve the data if possible.

Thanks a lot Sharon F for your help. While I haven't yet licked the problem
I at least feel there may be something I can do about it. Hope has value.
Click to expand...

You're right. No answer yet but the two-heads-are-better-than-one method
often helps in these newsgroups. It sounds like you're one the right track.
May want to try www.bootdisk.com for the Win98 boot disk. Good luck to you
with sorting this the rest of the way.
 
The drive in question was the original drive that came on a Dell PC with XP
already loaded.
Click to expand...

Thought of something: Jumpers for the drive are correct for its position on
the cables/IDE ports? Master or slave?
 
Getting rid of Go Back worked, but only if the drive was configured as a
slave. If I leave it as the master I get the same error message, like
nothing changed. But if I configure it as the slave I now see it with a
drive letter and can get to the data on the disk. I have already backed up
the data I needed access to just in case. I would like to boot from it,
however, as it is the larger disk and has all the applications I use on it.
The other option would be to configure it so that the applications show up on
the Start menue regardless of the physical drive they are on. One issue
might be that I have many of the same applications loaded on both drives. I
would also like some applications, such as Norton Systemworks, to work on
both drives. Do you know what I can do to make that happen?

Thanks again Sharon as it was your clues that got me back to my data.
 
Getting rid of Go Back worked, but only if the drive was configured as a
slave. If I leave it as the master I get the same error message, like
nothing changed. But if I configure it as the slave I now see it with a
drive letter and can get to the data on the disk. I have already backed up
the data I needed access to just in case. I would like to boot from it,
however, as it is the larger disk and has all the applications I use on it.
The other option would be to configure it so that the applications show up on
the Start menue regardless of the physical drive they are on. One issue
might be that I have many of the same applications loaded on both drives. I
would also like some applications, such as Norton Systemworks, to work on
both drives. Do you know what I can do to make that happen?

Thanks again Sharon as it was your clues that got me back to my data.
Click to expand...

I'm glad to hear that the data is safe. That should be a main concern
whenever making a change.

From here, I think that you need to run a repair install with the drive in
the machine it will be used with and in the position (primary master) that
you want it in.

That XP install was in a different machine before and is configured for
that other hardware. The repair install will correct the hardware info and
corresponding files. Data and programs *should* be fine and ready to go
when the process is finished.

Below are the URLs for the relative MS Knowledge Base article and a site by
one of the MVPs on the subject. One more thing though, has your XP
installation been updated to SP2 yet? If yes, you will need to take that
into consideration. Creating a "slipstreamed" CD is probably the most
direct approach - no uninstalling of SP2 is necessary to get the repair
done. Google for "slipstream sp2" (many sites cover this technique) or
search for "autostreamer" a little program that guides you through the
process.

Again guides for repair install below:

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

NOTE: The above article applies to retail CD or a generic OEM CD. If your
Windows came preinstalled and your recovery media has been customized by
the manufacturer, check your system manual for restore/repair options and
for directions.
 
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