Install doesn't assign drive letter to slave drive

[smcroy]

I have a computer I'm upgrading with a new motherboard and
120G WD hard drive. The old system was running ME with a
2+ yr old 40G WD hard drive as the master and only hard
drive. I want that 40G drive to become my slave drive on
the new system. I've installed it with the proper jumper
settings (master on 120G, slave on 40G) and both on the
same IDE channel. The bios recognizes the drive, and so
does Windows Disk Management in the new XP installation,
but it does not assign a drive letter to it. In Disk
Management, the disk shows as Healthy (Active) with a
FAT32 Basic Partition, but when I try to assign a letter
by right-clicking on the drive, every choice is gray'ed
out except "Delete Partition". Capacity shows 37.26 GB,
with 17.40 GB free. (As expected, the master C drive shows
NTFS, 111.78 GB capacity, Healthy (System)). I want the
40G drive to be a slave drive so I can move files from my
old installation to the new one. I've looked through the
entire Knowledge Base of both Microsoft and Western
Digital, but found nothing applicable. Western Digital
support calls this a Windows issue. Any ideas?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Try the following:

1. Right-click on My Computer and select Manage.
2. Click once on Disk Management to highlight it.
3. Then from the Computer Management toolbar,
click on Action > Rescan Disks.

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=309000

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


|I have a computer I'm upgrading with a new motherboard and
| 120G WD hard drive. The old system was running ME with a
| 2+ yr old 40G WD hard drive as the master and only hard
| drive. I want that 40G drive to become my slave drive on
| the new system. I've installed it with the proper jumper
| settings (master on 120G, slave on 40G) and both on the
| same IDE channel. The bios recognizes the drive, and so
| does Windows Disk Management in the new XP installation,
| but it does not assign a drive letter to it. In Disk
| Management, the disk shows as Healthy (Active) with a
| FAT32 Basic Partition, but when I try to assign a letter
| by right-clicking on the drive, every choice is gray'ed
| out except "Delete Partition". Capacity shows 37.26 GB,
| with 17.40 GB free. (As expected, the master C drive shows
| NTFS, 111.78 GB capacity, Healthy (System)). I want the
| 40G drive to be a slave drive so I can move files from my
| old installation to the new one. I've looked through the
| entire Knowledge Base of both Microsoft and Western
| Digital, but found nothing applicable. Western Digital
| support calls this a Windows issue. Any ideas?

 

[Guest]

I have the same problem (execpt the my FAT32 drive has 98). Rescan disks does do anything.

I also had the same problem if I set the jumpers to "cable select", but didn't look into it much, I just moved on to Master/Slave. Now, the new XP Home drive is set as "Device 0 (Slave Present)" and the 98 drive is set as "Slave to Master". In Disk Management, the master (NTFS) shows as C: Healthy (System). The slave (FAT32) has no drive letter and shows Healthy (Active).

This doesn't sound like anything that should be too difficult. Is this something common that works all the time for most people? I've come across 3 posts on this and none have a solution.

Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[Patrick Dunford]

I have the same problem (execpt the my FAT32 drive has 98). Rescan disks does do anything.

I also had the same problem if I set the jumpers to "cable select", but didn't look into it much, I just moved on to Master/Slave. Now, the new XP Home drive is set as "Device 0 (Slave Present)" and the 98 drive is set as "Slave to Master". In Disk Management, the master (NTFS) shows as C: Healthy (System). The slave (FAT32) has no drive letter and shows Healthy (Active).

This doesn't sound like anything that should be too difficult. Is this something common that works all the time for most people? I've come across 3 posts on this and none have a solution.

Thanks for any help you can give.

There is a size limit on FAT32 partitions - I think it's 128GB but it
could be smaller. XP can only format 32GB, but it should be able to mount
the larger partition.