hard drive problem

[Monte Hounchell]

I had three hard drives connected to my system...

They have been connected for over six months and worked perfectly.

yesterday... I did a new install on my system.. and now there is only
one of my three drives assigned a drive letter...the system drive..

The other two, are marked..."active" but do not have a drive letter
assigned to them.

I can see them, in Disk Management but not in my My Computer or
Explorer. needless to say I can not acess the data from them.

Can anyone tell me what is going on.. and what I might do to get acess
to my other drives..


Thank you..

Monte

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Guest]

A bit of background.

Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk.

Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended.

A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System.
All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one
wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc].

One primary partition at a time must be marked as ‘Active’ designating it as
the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this should be
the ‘C-Drive’.

One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in
that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive
letter [‘D’, thru to ‘Z’].

An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one
can then create a number of Logical Drives.

Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are
individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus
an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each
with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable.

SO you appear to have ALL 3 of your drives marked as ACTIVE: contrary to
Microsoft's requirements and thus C drive is OK and others are not.

 

[Monte Hounchell]

yes, very interesting... and very informative.. but how do I take the
active off the drives?

Thank you...

A bit of background.

Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk.

Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended.

A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System.
All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one
wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc].

One primary partition at a time must be marked as ‘Active’ designating it as
the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this should be
the ‘C-Drive’.

One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in
that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive
letter [‘D’, thru to ‘Z’].

An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one
can then create a number of Logical Drives.

Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are
individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus
an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each
with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable.

SO you appear to have ALL 3 of your drives marked as ACTIVE: contrary to
Microsoft's requirements and thus C drive is OK and others are not.

I had three hard drives connected to my system...

They have been connected for over six months and worked perfectly.

yesterday... I did a new install on my system.. and now there is only
one of my three drives assigned a drive letter...the system drive..

The other two, are marked..."active" but do not have a drive letter
assigned to them.

I can see them, in Disk Management but not in my My Computer or
Explorer. needless to say I can not acess the data from them.

Can anyone tell me what is going on.. and what I might do to get acess
to my other drives..


Thank you..

Monte

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Timothy Daniels]

First, check to see if they are really all marked "active".
Rt-clk on My Computer. Left-clk on Manage/DiskManagement.
Rt-clk on each drive portrayed and see if the option is not
grayed out for "Mark Partition as Active". If it's grayed out, it
means that it's marked "active".

*TimDan*

BAR wrote:

yes, very interesting... and very informative.. but how do
I take the active off the drives?

Thank you...

A bit of background.

Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk.

Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended.

A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System.
All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one
wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc].

One primary partition at a time must be marked as 'Active' designating it as
the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this should be
the 'C-Drive'.

One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in
that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive
letter ['D', thru to 'Z'].

An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one
can then create a number of Logical Drives.

Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are
individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus
an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each
with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable.

SO you appear to have ALL 3 of your drives marked as ACTIVE: contrary to
Microsoft's requirements and thus C drive is OK and others are not.

I had three hard drives connected to my system...

They have been connected for over six months and worked perfectly.

yesterday... I did a new install on my system.. and now there is only
one of my three drives assigned a drive letter...the system drive..

The other two, are marked..."active" but do not have a drive letter
assigned to them.

I can see them, in Disk Management but not in my My Computer or
Explorer. needless to say I can not acess the data from them.

Can anyone tell me what is going on.. and what I might do to get acess
to my other drives..


Thank you..

Monte

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Edward Spann]

I am having a similar problem. I just recently had to do a re-install
of XP Pro, and after I did, then my H: drive is no longer accessible.
It was fine before the repair/reinstall. Now when I look in Disk
Management it's listed as "healthy", but the file system designation
is blank! And if I click on the H: drive in Windows explorer I get an
error saying that drive "is not accessible. The file or directory is
corrupted or unreadable." I notice what was written below about only 4
partitions per disk, and my H: drive is my 5th, (after C:,E:,F:, and
G: drives) but it was working fine for the last 6-8 months.
Ed

A bit of background.

Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk.

Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended.

A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System.
All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one
wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc].

One primary partition at a time must be marked as ‘Active’ designating it as
the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this should be
the ‘C-Drive’.

One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in
that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive
letter [‘D’, thru to ‘Z’].

An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one
can then create a number of Logical Drives.

Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are
individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus
an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each
with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable.

SO you appear to have ALL 3 of your drives marked as ACTIVE: contrary to
Microsoft's requirements and thus C drive is OK and others are not.

I had three hard drives connected to my system...

They have been connected for over six months and worked perfectly.

yesterday... I did a new install on my system.. and now there is only
one of my three drives assigned a drive letter...the system drive..

The other two, are marked..."active" but do not have a drive letter
assigned to them.

I can see them, in Disk Management but not in my My Computer or
Explorer. needless to say I can not acess the data from them.

Can anyone tell me what is going on.. and what I might do to get acess
to my other drives..


Thank you..

Monte

(e-mail address removed)

 

[UKnowWho]

I am having a hard drive problem. I just recently had to do a
re-install of XP Pro, and after I did, then my G: drive is no longer
accessible.
It was fine before the repair/reinstall. Now when I look in Disk
Management it's listed as "healthy", but the file system designation
is blank! And if I click on the G: drive in Windows explorer I get an
error saying that drive "is not accessible. The file or directory is
corrupted or unreadable."
Can anyone help me with this?
Ed

A bit of background.

Windows XP supports up to four partitions per hard disk.

Windows XP supports two main partition TYPES: Primary and Extended.

A primary partition is one from which one can boot up an Operating System.
All four partitions can be designated as Primary [or bootable, should one
wish to install more than one Operating System, such as XP, 98, Linux etc].

One primary partition at a time must be marked as ‘Active’ designating it as
the one from which the computer will boot: in almost all cases this should be
the ‘C-Drive’.

One partition can be allocated as an Extended Partition. These differ in
that they are not formatted with a file system or assigned a specific drive
letter [‘D’, thru to ‘Z’].

An Extended Partition is then a dedicated area of disk space in which one
can then create a number of Logical Drives.

Logical Drives are similar to primary partitions in that they are
individually formatted with a file system and assigned a drive letter: thus
an extended partition can have an unlimited number of Logical Drives each
with its own drive letter, none of the Logical drives is bootable.

SO you appear to have ALL 3 of your drives marked as ACTIVE: contrary to
Microsoft's requirements and thus C drive is OK and others are not.

I had three hard drives connected to my system...

They have been connected for over six months and worked perfectly.

yesterday... I did a new install on my system.. and now there is only
one of my three drives assigned a drive letter...the system drive..

The other two, are marked..."active" but do not have a drive letter
assigned to them.

I can see them, in Disk Management but not in my My Computer or
Explorer. needless to say I can not acess the data from them.

Can anyone tell me what is going on.. and what I might do to get acess
to my other drives..


Thank you..

Monte

(e-mail address removed)