hard drive working in devicemgr doesn't show in explorer

[backalley]

just did clean install of XPpro on wd80gb w/ wd20gb slave
and two CD drives. double checked all jumpers, switched
ide cables to check cables and switched primary and
secondary to check controller. I even swapped the
secondary hd to the cd cable to make sure the hard drives
weren't having trouble with each other, each time the
20gb hard drive shows up on bios, in device manager it
shows as "working properly", no exclamation points or
question marks. but doesn't show up in windows explorer.
disconnected drive and was able to see the old files on
the 20gb intact. just not seeing 20gb in XPpro.
Also downloaded WesternDigitals diagnostic tools. shows
both drives as physical drives, but only the 80gb as
Logical drive. but utility shows disk ok.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Backalley.

Looks like you haven't yet found Disk Management. This is the utility built
into Win2K and WinXP that replaces good old FDISK and Format.exe that we
used in MS-DOS days. It also takes over the drive letter assignment duties
from Device Manager. A quick way to open Disk Management is to type at the
Run prompt: diskmgmt.msc

Disk Management is a very capable program and it includes a very helpful
Help file. You mostly likely need to assign a drive letter to the volume on
that 20 GB drive. Windows Explorer can't see a volume until it has a
"drive" letter assigned. You may need to "mount" or "initialize" the
"foreign disk" in WinXP; search for those terms under Disk Management in the
Help file.

RC

 

[backalley]

found disk manager, see the volume, but options are
greyed out for all but "delete partition". disk manager
shows disk as "basic" and (healthy) status
I was trying to keep the original win98 configuration
intact in case i had to revert back(just plug back in the
old setup) for a few weeks. It looks like my only choice
now is to create a dynamic disk so i can read the thing.

what do you think?

thanks in advance,
rob

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Rob.

I don't time for a complete answer now, but just a couple of points...

First, to pick a nit: Disk ManageR was the name of a very limited utility
included in WinNT4. Disk ManageMENT is the much more powerful and useful
"MMC snap-in" included in Win2K/XP. (I sure wish Microsoft would do a
better job of naming some things. We can't even abbreviate Disk Management
because everybody knows that DM is Device Manager.)

Second, I've never been brave enough to try a dynamic disk and I don't think
it fits your situation at all. Be sure to study the Help file thoroughly
before you go that route. And if you have time, search the archives for all
the folks who have gone to dynamic disks, then had a problem, and had no way
to go back to basic disks and no way to recover their data. From what I've
read, dynamic disks are great - but only when used - with car - for their
intended purpose.

Third,

I was trying to keep the original win98 configuration
intact in case i had to revert back

I don't see the logic in this. So long as it is formatted FAT32, it can be
read just fine by either WinXP or Win98. In fact, many of us have run a
dual-boot system with Win9x/ME and Win2K/XP for years, accessing the same
FAT32 volumes from both versions of Windows.

RC