WDC 120G drives read as needing to be formatted ??

  • Thread starter Thread starter randy
  • Start date Start date
R

randy

My WinXPpro recently stopped reading my WDC 120G drives
(worked fine for almost a year) - only sees them
as "local drives" rather than as the volumn label, but
when clicked on - responses with drive needs to be
formatted.

However, when I boot the same machine into Win Me (vice
WinXPpro - set in a dual boot mode on separate drives)
the WDC 120G drives are read normally - no problem.

The bios reads the WDC 120G drives just fine as well.

All drives are formatted as FAT-32.
 
Hi, Randy.

What does WinXP's Disk Management tell you about those HDs?

Are you saying that WinXP did use the drives normally and then abruptly
stopped? Had you used Disk Management to assign specific "drive" letters to
the volumes on those HDs? By default, WinXP starts from scratch each time
you reboot and assigns letters according to its own built-in algorithm. If
you add or remove a Zip drive, a USB "thumb" drive, a camera, etc., before
rebooting, your HD volumes may get pushed up or down a notch. What was
Drive E: this morning might be Drive G: now.

Are you using WinXP's dual boot menu, or a third-party product such as Boot
Magic or BootItNG?

RC
 
Hi RC,
Thanks for your reply.
WinXPpro Disk Mgmt reports the two WDC 120G drives as;
volume: Drive letter (no label)
layout: partition
type: basis
file System: blank (other drives reported as FAT32)
status: healthy (Active) [others Healthy (boot) or
Healthy (system)]

Using standard Win XP dual Boot (No third-party Partition
Magic, etc)

I'm controlling the WD120G drives through a RAID
controller on the ABIT BE-7 RAID mBoard. Not a driver
problem either, I moved the drives off the RAID chip onto
the standard EIDE PRI & SEC channels without effect.
WinXPpro just refuses to properly recognize those drives.

They've been working fine until just the last day or so.
Hanged if I can figure it out just yet, mate.

I recently ungraded the drivers for the ATI AIW Radeon
9700 video card and associated Multi-media center (TV,
DVD, VCR, etc) - didn't notice any effect there.

The strange part is that the drives are read just fine
when I boot into Win ME, no problem. The nice part of the
dual-boot configuration is that it allowed me to quickly
see that the drives are fine and all the data are intact.
That was a big worry overcome quickly.

Seems as though it's something peculiar to Win XP Pro.
I'm also checking with WDC to see if they've heard of
this trouble before. Maybe something in the last update
package, which I update regularly. I used Restore to a
period of a week ago, with no change.

It's definitely a head scratcher.

Regards,
Randy
 
Hi RC,
Thanks for your reply.
WinXPpro Disk Mgmt reports the two WDC 120G drives as;
volume: Drive letter (no label)
layout: partition
type: basis
file System: blank (other drives reported as FAT32)
status: healthy (Active) [others Healthy (boot) or
Healthy (system)]

Using standard Win XP dual Boot (No third-party Partition
Magic, etc)

I'm controlling the WD120G drives through a RAID
controller on the ABIT BE-7 RAID mBoard. Not a driver
problem either, I moved the drives off the RAID chip onto
the standard EIDE PRI & SEC channels without effect.
WinXPpro just refuses to properly recognize those drives.

They've been working fine until just the last day or so.
Hanged if I can figure it out just yet, mate.

I recently ungraded the drivers for the ATI AIW Radeon
9700 video card and associated Multi-media center (TV,
DVD, VCR, etc) - didn't notice any effect there.

The strange part is that the drives are read just fine
when I boot into Win ME, no problem. The nice part of the
dual-boot configuration is that it allowed me to quickly
see that the drives are fine and all the data are intact.
That was a big worry overcome quickly.

Seems as though it's something peculiar to Win XP Pro.
I'm also checking with WDC to see if they've heard of
this trouble before. Maybe something in the last update
package, which I update regularly. I used Restore to a
period of a week ago, with no change.

It's definitely a head scratcher.

Regards,
Randy
 
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