eSATA drive

[philo]

I've got an eSATA drive that I formatted NTFS on my XP installation.

machine has removable drives & I run many OS's on the same machine.

works fine on all (including Linux) *except* when I run Vista

all updates including SP2


when I try to access drive it always comes up as unformatted...
but if I schedule chdksk to run on it upon reboot...no problems found!


What's the deal here?

again, problem *only* occurs with Vista

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Philo.

What does Disk Management say about that hard disk drive? You may need to
"initialize" the "foreign disk".

As I recall, there was a slight change in NTFS between WinXP and Vista, but
I ran both side by side and it never was a problem. I've been running SATA
drives for a few years, but never eSATA.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64

 

[philo]

Hi, Philo.

What does Disk Management say about that hard disk drive? You may need
to "initialize" the "foreign disk".

As I recall, there was a slight change in NTFS between WinXP and Vista,
but I ran both side by side and it never was a problem. I've been
running SATA drives for a few years, but never eSATA.

RC

Thanks for the reply

Normally if an uninitialized disk is introduced into the system...
the first time it's used, the message to initialize automatically pops up.

I did not get that message...it appeared as one would normally expect in
Windows explorer.

When I tried to access the drive...it was then I got the message that
the drive was not formatted.

Never got to disk management as Windows explorer then locked up and I
had to reboot the machine.

Though I know Vista did change the way it performs an NTFS format,
I've never had a problem before with Vista reading an XP or Win2k drive.

As to eSATA there is no difference between an internal or external drive
other than the external drive having it's own power

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Yes, it sounds quite peculiar to me, too.

I have no idea what could be wrong; however, I would try two things:

Use Disk Management to assign a drive letter after the other drives, say,
'S'.

If that did not help:
Use something like Acronis Disk Director to change the partition from
'Primary' to 'Extended'.

Good lick.
Tom

 

[philo]

Yes, it sounds quite peculiar to me, too.

I have no idea what could be wrong; however, I would try two things:

Use Disk Management to assign a drive letter after the other drives,
say, 'S'.

If that did not help:
Use something like Acronis Disk Director to change the partition from
'Primary' to 'Extended'.

Good lick.
Tom

Thanks for the reply but I assure you I am not going to fool with a
drive with that much data on it...even though I do have several backups

 

[Bill Daggett]

Thanks for the reply but I assure you I am not going to fool with a
drive with that much data on it...even though I do have several backups

Then what's the purpose of backups? Or don't you trust them?

 

[philo]

Then what's the purpose of backups? Or don't you trust them?

I have all my important data backed up on 4 physically separate drives...

However:
there is no way I am going to radically change the configuration of a
drive that works on numerous different operating systems...
Vista being the only exception.

 

[Bill Yanaire]

I have all my important data backed up on 4 physically separate drives...

However:
there is no way I am going to radically change the configuration of a
drive that works on numerous different operating systems...
Vista being the only exception.

So if you have XP and it works, why deal with Vista when it gives you
problems? Delete Vista and wait until Windows 7 comes out.

Windows 7 is much nicer.

 

[philo]

So if you have XP and it works, why deal with Vista when it gives you
problems? Delete Vista and wait until Windows 7 comes out.

Windows 7 is much nicer.

I use mainly Linux now...
but as someone who does a lot of computer repair work...I feel sort of
obligated to run all the different operating systems I can get my hands
on...so that if someone is having a problem I can boot to the same OS
they are using and give them the best help.

However...Don't think I'll be giving much Vista help if I cannot get my
own system 100% working! LOL

 

[Bill Yanaire]

I use mainly Linux now...
but as someone who does a lot of computer repair work...I feel sort of
obligated to run all the different operating systems I can get my hands
on...so that if someone is having a problem I can boot to the same OS
they are using and give them the best help.

However...Don't think I'll be giving much Vista help if I cannot get my
own system 100% working! LOL

I couldn't wait to get rid of Vista. I now have Windows 7 RTM and have
installed it on my machines. Runs well and it seems to be solid. I
think Microsoft got it right this time.