Hi, Dave.
What you describe should be working fine, so let's figure out why it isn't.
When I go into windows explorer to browse the second
Are you booting into Win2K? Or WinXP? Or does this happen in both
versions?
harddrive it sees the volume (G
but I cannot see any
A common misconception is that drive letters are fixed and always stay the
same. Actually, though, each time the computer reboots, the BIOS assigns
drive letters all over again from scratch, depending on which hardware is
connected at the time. Then Windows loads, and reassigns letters based on
its own rules, which may not be the same as the BIOS rules. And "drive"
letters are not actually assigned to hard drives, but to the partitions and
logical drives on the HDDs; a single hard disk drive can hold several
"drives", each with a different letter. Disk Management in both Win2K and
WinXP allow us to reassign "drive" letters to suit ourselves; thereafter,
Windows will try to assign these same letters after each reboot. Win2K,
though, does not know which letters WinXP has assigned, and vice versa.
It's quite possible that the second volume on your second HD, for example,
might be G: when you are booted into Win2K, but X: when you are running
WinXP.
it sees the volume (G
but I cannot see any
folders on that hard drive.
This seems strange. First, what do you mean by "it"? Windows Explorer? In
Win2K, WinXP, or both?
The harddrive does not have
an OS on it.
This should not matter at all. Just boot into Win2K on HD0, for example,
and read all of HD1, just as you read your floppy diskette and your CD/DVD
drive, USB "thumb drive", etc.
Important to know that I was able to access this second
harddrive before I installed XP home on the master along
with win2k.
HOW did you install WinXP? It should have been simple and automatic. Just
boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and follow the prompts. Tell it to install WinXP
in the second partition on the first HD. It should detect that Win2K is
already installed, and create the dual-boot menu that you should then see
each time you reboot.
There are other ways to dual-boot, using third-party boot managers, such as
BootItNG or Boot Magic. I've never used those programs and don't know how
they manage hard drives. But many readers here are familiar with them and
can help, IF you tell us what you are using.
RC
