Primary Slave drive has disappeared after reinstalling xp home

[[email protected]]

Guys

Old setup was 80gb primary master and 200gb primary slave. Slave was
partioned into 3.
Slave runs on same IDE cable as master.

80gb master is getting a bit creaky so I...

Put a new master drive in - 200gb Western Digitial. Installed XP home
from original recovery disc. Usual problem with Win Xp on recognising
138gb of the drive but got through this, got it installed and up and
running.

The problem is although I can see the primary slave in Device Manager
and it says everything is running okay with it...I can't access it, see
any of the drive letters g:, h: etc etc
in explorer. I transferred a whole heap of stuff from my old drive onto
it with the belief I could then transfer back the information on the
newly installed drive.

I have been through lots of information about various similar issues
but I don't have ANY access to this drive.. It doesn't show up in disc
manager although the new drive c:, d: and the CDrom and Dvd rom do..

Help please. This is a family PC and I am about to get lynched.

..Anything else you need to know?

Thankyou

Ged

[[email protected]]

It gets better..

When I swapped my old 80gb ( still working ) back into the system the
primary slave is also lgone and now displays as a 'local disc' called
F:..It was called, G, H etc.. It also says it has 99% free capacity
when I know it is full !

I also played around with the Bios settings and returned it to default.
Could this be farking up the disc recognition?

Once again..Thanks for any help

Ged




wrote:
> Guys
>
> Old setup was 80gb primary master and 200gb primary slave. Slave was
> partioned into 3.
> Slave runs on same IDE cable as master.
>
> 80gb master is getting a bit creaky so I...
>
> Put a new master drive in - 200gb Western Digitial. Installed XP home
> from original recovery disc. Usual problem with Win Xp on recognising
> 138gb of the drive but got through this, got it installed and up and
> running.
>
> The problem is although I can see the primary slave in Device Manager
> and it says everything is running okay with it...I can't access it, see
> any of the drive letters g:, h: etc etc
> in explorer. I transferred a whole heap of stuff from my old drive onto
> it with the belief I could then transfer back the information on the
> newly installed drive.
>
> I have been through lots of information about various similar issues
> but I don't have ANY access to this drive.. It doesn't show up in disc
> manager although the new drive c:, d: and the CDrom and Dvd rom do..
>
> Help please. This is a family PC and I am about to get lynched.
>
> .Anything else you need to know?
>
> Thankyou
>
> Ged

[Ian]

The change in drive-letter is almost certainly down-to the disk signature.
The signature resides in the MBR of the disk and Windows XP uses it to
distinguish between disks on a system, instead of using the IDE port-order as
do other OS's like DOS or Win9x.

http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm

The loss of access to one disk might be due to your using an earlier version
of Windows- is your install-disk SP2, or not?

With disks of over 128GB it's highly advisable to use an SP2 CD to do your
setup.

[[email protected]]

Ian

Thanks a bunch for that. I reckon I figured out ( whilst lying awake
thinking about it) last night that I screwed up big style...That'll
teach me to drink beer whilst playing with the PC.

After installing the new 200 gb drive it was the c: drive and it
registered as 138gb in explorer. There was also another drive d: that I
couldn't open but could format. I wrongly assumed this was the 'other'
portion of the 200gb drive that XP home didn't recognise at initial
format stage.

I now believe this was actually the 2nd primary drive but the drive
letters had changed to reflect the new install. And I formatted
it.!!!!!
Then went looking for my old drive letters of G: and H etc. and
couldn't find them. What fixed it for me was when I looked at the size
of the now formatted D: drive and saw it was around 125gb in size (
size of my slave hard disc)...and not the 60gb I was expecting to
find...

DOH !!

I've now installed win XP home ( the one that didn't allow for larger
drives than 137 gb), updated to SP2 and am now trying to locate the
other 60 gig of the 200gig drive...Any clues. I believe I need to alter
a registry entry.

Thanks

Ged






Ian wrote:
> The change in drive-letter is almost certainly down-to the disk signature.
> The signature resides in the MBR of the disk and Windows XP uses it to
> distinguish between disks on a system, instead of using the IDE port-order as
> do other OS's like DOS or Win9x.
>
> http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm
>
> The loss of access to one disk might be due to your using an earlier version
> of Windows- is your install-disk SP2, or not?
>
> With disks of over 128GB it's highly advisable to use an SP2 CD to do your
> setup.

[GreenieLeBrun]

wrote:
> Ian
>
> Thanks a bunch for that. I reckon I figured out ( whilst lying awake
> thinking about it) last night that I screwed up big style...That'll
> teach me to drink beer whilst playing with the PC.
>
> After installing the new 200 gb drive it was the c: drive and it
> registered as 138gb in explorer. There was also another drive d: that I
> couldn't open but could format. I wrongly assumed this was the 'other'
> portion of the 200gb drive that XP home didn't recognise at initial
> format stage.
>
> I now believe this was actually the 2nd primary drive but the drive
> letters had changed to reflect the new install. And I formatted
> it.!!!!!
> Then went looking for my old drive letters of G: and H etc. and
> couldn't find them. What fixed it for me was when I looked at the size
> of the now formatted D: drive and saw it was around 125gb in size (
> size of my slave hard disc)...and not the 60gb I was expecting to
> find...
>
> DOH !!
>
> I've now installed win XP home ( the one that didn't allow for larger
> drives than 137 gb), updated to SP2 and am now trying to locate the
> other 60 gig of the 200gig drive...Any clues. I believe I need to alter
> a registry entry.
>
> Thanks
>
> Ged
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Ian wrote:
> > The change in drive-letter is almost certainly down-to the disk signature.
> > The signature resides in the MBR of the disk and Windows XP uses it to
> > distinguish between disks on a system, instead of using the IDE port-order as
> > do other OS's like DOS or Win9x.
> >
> > http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm
> >
> > The loss of access to one disk might be due to your using an earlier version
> > of Windows- is your install-disk SP2, or not?
> >
> > With disks of over 128GB it's highly advisable to use an SP2 CD to do your
> > setup.

You may find it easier to slipstream SP2 to a new CD and reinstall from
that.

Slipstreamed Windows XP CD Using SP2
http://www.theeldergeek.com/slipstreamed_xpsp2_cd.htm

How to use AutoStreamer to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 2
http://www.simplyguides.net/guides/using_autostreamer/using_autostreamer.html

Windows XP Service Pack 2 - Direct Download
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

You may also like to look at nLite ( http://www.nliteos.com/index.html
)
and especially RyanVM's Windows XP Post-SP2 Update Pack
(http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/updatepack.html)