2nd hard drive no drive letter

  • Thread starter Thread starter DR
  • Start date Start date
D

DR

I currently built a system and loaded XP Pro - want to trnsfr files from old
hard drive to new. New system has a SATA hd (Seagate 80G) and everything is
working fine. Connected old drive (Quantum fireball 20G) with Windows 98se
to IDE cable as slave and CD drive as master. Boot process sees 2hd as
slave, Device Manager sees 2hd, Computer Mgmt sees both hd, but if I right
click the second hd my only option is to Delete Partion or Help. The option
to change drive letter and path is not available (grayed out). Both hd are
seen as healthy with fat 32. Volume labels are listed as: C: and the second
as Windows_98. I have tried the Action, rescan disks in computer mgmt and
have read several help forums and past posted Q&A's and have tried just about
every suggestion? I did read a past post something about go back which was
loaded on my old system.
 
I would recommend that you temporarily unhook the CD and put the Quantum as
the master on the IDE channel. Many older drives (and a Quantum 20 GB is an
old drive) didn't like a CD being the master and them being the slave.
Don't know if this is the problem you are experiencing.

What is the drive letter of the CD as you currently have it set? If it is
set as D: it may, with the configuration you currently have, be keeping the
OS from assigning a letter to the Quantum drive.

Hope this helps, if not, or if it does, please let us know.
 
tried it and it did not work, but thank you.

LVTravel said:
I would recommend that you temporarily unhook the CD and put the Quantum as
the master on the IDE channel. Many older drives (and a Quantum 20 GB is an
old drive) didn't like a CD being the master and them being the slave.
Don't know if this is the problem you are experiencing.

What is the drive letter of the CD as you currently have it set? If it is
set as D: it may, with the configuration you currently have, be keeping the
OS from assigning a letter to the Quantum drive.

Hope this helps, if not, or if it does, please let us know.
 
When you unhooked the CD and only had the Quantum drive on the IDE channel,
did it show during the boot and also in Drive management the same way as it
did when you had the CD drive hooked up?

Can you actually hear the drive spinning up when it is turned on? I had an
old drive once that failed to spin up, the computer (this was a Win 2000
system) would find the electronics on the drive (bios found the drive) and
IIRC Windows could see the drive's electronics but couldn't access it to
read or write it. I can't remember if a drive letter was assigned or not in
its failure state. Wonder if this may be the case, drive not spinning up.
If you CAN'T hear it spinning up, give it a sharp rap on its side (either
through drive rack side or if not permanently installed in the rack on it's
narrow side with the but of a screwdriver. Don't tap on top or electronics
side of drive.) just after powerup of system. Worked to get my drive
spinning.

Let me know what you find out.
 
LVTravel said:
I would recommend that you temporarily unhook the CD and put the Quantum as
the master on the IDE channel. Many older drives (and a Quantum 20 GB is
an old drive) didn't like a CD being the master and them being the slave.
Don't know if this is the problem you are experiencing.

What is the drive letter of the CD as you currently have it set? If it is
set as D: it may, with the configuration you currently have, be keeping
the OS from assigning a letter to the Quantum drive.

Hope this helps, if not, or if it does, please let us know.

Hi, LVTravel, if OP connects old, ide drive to the system using an
external, usb enclosure, wouldn't the system recognize it where he could
then copy over the files? If I understand correctly, the ide must be jumped
as master to be seen, but couldn't it be plugged into/after system is booted
via its 'hot-swap' capability? s
 
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