Adding IDE drive to SCSI system

[thinman]

System: Adaptec 2940U2W
IBM 9LZX 9 gig h/d
-2- Plextor SCSI CD-ROM's
Castlewood Orb 2.2 Gig removable drive
Win98 FE + updates

Have tried to add a Western Digital 120 GB IDE drive to
the system, setting it up to only have an extended DOS
partition with -4- logical drives. However, when I run
FDISK, it shows as Disk 1 and it keeps giving me a
message that I have to create a Primary DOS partition.
It shows the SCSI boot drive as Disk 2 (drives C, D, E, F)
and the Orb drive as Disk 3 (no drive letter assignment;
in Win Explorer, it shows as Drive G).

Well, I don't want to !! If I do that , then the drive letter
assignments on the existing SCSI boot drive become
screwed up. I just finished adding the same model drive
to another system (all IDE) and had no problems doing
the extended partition & logical drive(s) setup on it.

BIOS settings are set so that the boot order is "SCSI, A, C".
Have enabled the IDE ports on the motherboard; the IDE
drive is recognized properly. IDE drive is jumped as a
"single drive".

What do I need to do to make this work ??

thanks
ray

 

[philo]

System: Adaptec 2940U2W
IBM 9LZX 9 gig h/d
-2- Plextor SCSI CD-ROM's
Castlewood Orb 2.2 Gig removable drive
Win98 FE + updates

Have tried to add a Western Digital 120 GB IDE drive to
the system, setting it up to only have an extended DOS
partition with -4- logical drives. However, when I run
FDISK, it shows as Disk 1 and it keeps giving me a
message that I have to create a Primary DOS partition.
It shows the SCSI boot drive as Disk 2 (drives C, D, E, F)
and the Orb drive as Disk 3 (no drive letter assignment;
in Win Explorer, it shows as Drive G).

Well, I don't want to !! If I do that , then the drive letter
assignments on the existing SCSI boot drive become
screwed up. I just finished adding the same model drive
to another system (all IDE) and had no problems doing
the extended partition & logical drive(s) setup on it.

BIOS settings are set so that the boot order is "SCSI, A, C".
Have enabled the IDE ports on the motherboard; the IDE
drive is recognized properly. IDE drive is jumped as a
"single drive".

What do I need to do to make this work ??

you should run fdisk
from within windows (dos_in_a_box)

rather than a boot disk

 

[Martin Racette]

Hi,

I had done something like it before, waht I had to do is to disable the "AUTO
DETECT" feature in the BIOS, so that the IDE drive wouldn't be recognized by the
system, but once in Windows everything was working perfectly. Windows detected
the drive and set it up with drive letters after the SCSI drives. but the order
of the drives was all IDE HDD first, and then SCSI, but the main thing was that
the drive letters were correct

--
Good Luck

Bonne Chance

Martin

 

[*Vanguard*]

thinman said in news:w5Xoc.36575$pJ1.11116@lakeread02:

System: Adaptec 2940U2W
IBM 9LZX 9 gig h/d
-2- Plextor SCSI CD-ROM's
Castlewood Orb 2.2 Gig removable drive
Win98 FE + updates

Have tried to add a Western Digital 120 GB IDE drive to
the system, setting it up to only have an extended DOS
partition with -4- logical drives. However, when I run
FDISK, it shows as Disk 1 and it keeps giving me a
message that I have to create a Primary DOS partition.
It shows the SCSI boot drive as Disk 2 (drives C, D, E, F)
and the Orb drive as Disk 3 (no drive letter assignment;
in Win Explorer, it shows as Drive G).

Well, I don't want to !! If I do that , then the drive letter
assignments on the existing SCSI boot drive become
screwed up. I just finished adding the same model drive
to another system (all IDE) and had no problems doing
the extended partition & logical drive(s) setup on it.

BIOS settings are set so that the boot order is "SCSI, A, C".
Have enabled the IDE ports on the motherboard; the IDE
drive is recognized properly. IDE drive is jumped as a
"single drive".

What do I need to do to make this work ??

thanks
ray

The BIOS for the motherboard loads before the BIOS for the SCSI
controller. That means the IDE ports are scanned first. Adding an IDE
hard disk means it will be detected as the first physical drive rather
than those on the SCSI controller. See
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=51978. Driver-only support drives,
like CD-ROMs get assigned last (because they aren't found until the OS
loads their drivers). Windows NT/2K/XP are different in that they put
signatures on the disks in the MBR and record them in the registry so
the drive letters will remain fixed even after adding more drives. You
won't have that in Windows 98.

This problem isn't just with SCSI. If you use an IDE controller
expansion card the same thing will happen because the BIOS for the
expansion card loads after the BIOS for the motherboard. Maybe
configuring the motherboard's BIOS to boot from SCSI might make it the
physical scan order change but I doubt it. You could also try NOT
defining hard drives in the BIOS (i.e., leave the IDE ports enabled but
configure NONE for drives in the basic drive setup screen).

 

[DaveW]

Win 98 always assigns IDE drives their letters BEFORE it assigns SCSI
drives. If you combine IDE and SCSI drives with Win 98, the boot drive must
be IDE. Time for Windows XP, perhaps?

 

[thinman]

Thanks to all !!!!!!!!!

ray

 

[kony]

Win 98 always assigns IDE drives their letters BEFORE it assigns SCSI
drives. If you combine IDE and SCSI drives with Win 98, the boot drive must
be IDE. Time for Windows XP, perhaps?

Nope, the boot drive most certainly does not need be "IDE" for Win98, nor
for ANY other OS for that matter. The choice of boot drive is a pre-OS
condition, has nothing to do with the OS used, rather is a feature of any
bios made in the past few years with rare exception of when an OEM might,
through bad judgement, hide and disable this standard feature.

 

[Trent©]

System: Adaptec 2940U2W
IBM 9LZX 9 gig h/d
-2- Plextor SCSI CD-ROM's
Castlewood Orb 2.2 Gig removable drive
Win98 FE + updates

Have tried to add a Western Digital 120 GB IDE drive to
the system, setting it up to only have an extended DOS
partition with -4- logical drives. However, when I run
FDISK, it shows as Disk 1 and it keeps giving me a
message that I have to create a Primary DOS partition.
It shows the SCSI boot drive as Disk 2 (drives C, D, E, F)
and the Orb drive as Disk 3 (no drive letter assignment;
in Win Explorer, it shows as Drive G).

Well, I don't want to !! If I do that , then the drive letter
assignments on the existing SCSI boot drive become
screwed up. I just finished adding the same model drive
to another system (all IDE) and had no problems doing
the extended partition & logical drive(s) setup on it.

BIOS settings are set so that the boot order is "SCSI, A, C".
Have enabled the IDE ports on the motherboard; the IDE
drive is recognized properly. IDE drive is jumped as a
"single drive".

What do I need to do to make this work ??

Here's a couple of ideas, Ray. I have NO idea if any of this will
work! lol

I'm sure you've already read all the excellent replies you've
gotten...so you know what the problem is.

Try this...

Partition the drive (and format) the way that you want. I'd suggest
doing it on that board that yer going to put it into. In order to do
that, yer probably gonna hafta find an IDE drive temporarily that the
machine can boot into...or at least have as the master on the primary
controller. Then put that new drive on the other controller...and set
it up with the extended partition that you want.

Then take out that temporary, boot drive.

At this point, you should have the extended partition on it.

Things you can then try...

Install that IDE drive on the secondary controller. Maybe that'll let
the SCSI boot first again. Turn off the primary controller in the
BIOS...and set the secondary to auto. You might even try setting it
up as slave on the secondary...but you may need a dummy master on that
controller.

You could also try hiding the partitions on that drive. Maybe 98 will
find it after it boots...but I really doubt it.

And, as was mentioned, you might get all this to work properly if you
installed an additional controller card. But, again...maybe not.

I don't know if any of the above will work...but I don't think you'll
hurt anything if you try it. And I have NO idea what drive letters
you'll get. It's late! lol

Anyway...let us know. It sounds interesting.


Have a nice week...

Trent©

Follow Joan Rivers' example --- get pre-embalmed!

 

[thinman]

Well, the only way I got it to work was to run FDISK
from within Win98 (dos box) . The IDE drive came up
as Disk #3 and all that was left was to set it up as
an extended partition and -4- logical drives. As I speak,
ScanDisk is running to verify media integrity (?); started
it last night around 9 pm and it's now 8 am and the first
12 gig partition is approximately 80% checked. Don't
think I'm going to do the remaining 145 gigs+/-.

Thanks for the suggestions. Have saved the posts for
future reference.

Ray.