Can't access 2nd HDD from Win98

[Chet Vora]

Hi all,

I added a new drive to my Win98 system. The drive is detected in BIOS
and shows up in Control Panel/System/DeviceManager but curiously,
doesn't show up in Windows Explorer/My Computer. Can't for the heck of
it figure out why. Any pointers will be appreciated.
System Configuration:
Primary Master: New drive - Seagate 4.3G
Primary Slave: Boot drive (win98) - WD 8.4G drive, has primary partition
C and logical D&E drives each of 2.1G (2.1G is unallocated now for
later use)
Secondary Master - DVD-ROM (Drive F)
Secondary Slave - None

PS: For some reason, keeping the Win98 drive master and the new drive
slave doesn't work for the BIOS.

Thanks in advance for the help,
Chet

[Ron Martell]

Chet Vora <chet...@hotmail.com> wrote:

First of all, for your new drive to be recognized by Windows a
partition must first have been created on it using FDISK.

Open a DOS window and enter the following command:
FDISK /STATUS

It will probably show you that disk 1 has either no partitions defined
or that it has a non-DOS partition on it.

If it has a non-DOS partition then it needs to have one created.

Note that if you create a primary DOS partition on this drive with it
connected as the primary master drive then it will automatically
become the boot drive. No choice.

If you create only an extended DOS partition on that drive then you
may be able to maintain your present configuration and still boot from
drive #2. Maybe. No guarantees. However, what will happen is that
the partition(s) on the new drive will take drive letter precedence
over the extended partition logical drives (now D: and E:). This is
automatic and cannot be avoided with your existing hardware
configuration.

Can I also suggest an alternate hardware configuration:

Primary Master: Boot drive
Primary Slave: None
Secondary Master: New drive
Secondary Slave: DVD

That should work and help keep your drive letters as now, PROVIDED you
partition the new drive as an Extended DOS partition only.

Good luck.

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."