Local Disk - RAW

[George K]

Recently built P4 640, 2 GB Dual Channel machine with two HDD's set in IDE
configuration. Under Windows Explorer, three disk drives are listed HDD1=c,
HDD2=d and Local Disk=e. The sizes of c & d correspond to 1 & 2 and are
accessable, however e is listed as not formatted "raw" and unaccessable. In
one of many diagnostic programs it was listed with a size of 992Mb
(although I no longer have that tool loaded and can't confirm the size for
this post). It is also identified as a local fixed disk under logical
drives. I can't access it, format it or delete it. What is it?

 

[Steve N.]

Recently built P4 640, 2 GB Dual Channel machine with two HDD's set in IDE
configuration. Under Windows Explorer, three disk drives are listed HDD1=c,
HDD2=d and Local Disk=e. The sizes of c & d correspond to 1 & 2 and are
accessable, however e is listed as not formatted "raw" and unaccessable. In
one of many diagnostic programs it was listed with a size of 992Mb
(although I no longer have that tool loaded and can't confirm the size for
this post). It is also identified as a local fixed disk under logical
drives. I can't access it, format it or delete it. What is it?

Possibily due to this:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309044&sd=tech

"Before you change a basic disk to a dynamic disk, note these items:
• You must have at least 1 megabyte (MB) of free space on any master
boot record (MBR) disk that you want to convert. This space is
automatically reserved when the partition or volume is created in
Microsoft Windows 2000 or Windows XP Professional. However, it may not
be available on partitions or volumes that are created in other
operating systems."

Depending on disk and cluster size the reserved space is the smallest
partitionable size greater than 1MB. For example, on typical 40-80 GB
drives this usually is around 8MB of space because that is the cluster
size and the smallest size the can be partitioned or left unpartitioned.

To remove the drive letter assignment go into Disk Management, right
clickon the E: drive shown, select Change drive letter and path, then
click Remove.

If you want to utilize that space you will have to use something other
than Windows 2000, XP or 2003 to partition it.

Steve

 

[George K]

Ok, its gone.

Under the table disk management it was listed as a drive "e", on the display
chart below it was at the extreme right hand side of drive "d" which I use
as a storage and static backup drive. I couldn't access it, so its removal
is fine. perhaps I will reformat the drive as a data drive and try to
recover the former partition space. Incidentally this reply is being sent
after the "drive" was removed and after I restarted the machine.

Thanks for the help.

 

[Steve N.]

Ok, its gone.

Under the table disk management it was listed as a drive "e", on the display
chart below it was at the extreme right hand side of drive "d" which I use
as a storage and static backup drive. I couldn't access it, so its removal
is fine. perhaps I will reformat the drive as a data drive and try to
recover the former partition space. Incidentally this reply is being sent
after the "drive" was removed and after I restarted the machine.

Thanks for the help.

You are most welcome. Perhaps the drive in question had once been a
Windows boot drive? If so another possibility is that it may have housed
a recovery partition from an OEM pre-install of Windows.

Since it is being treated as essencially a new drive and there is no
data on it you wish to recover then go ahead and delete existing
partitions, repartition and reformat it, it should give you the maximum
available space then. If there is data on the D: partition you wish to
preserve then you should back that data up first since deleteing the D:
partition will lose any data on it.

Good luck, happy computing, and post back to this thread if you need
further assistance in any of this.

Steve

 

[Guest]

May be the boot sector or FAT/ MFT are corrupt. Don't format,
use some tool to fix it.

I suggest you use Partition Table Doctor to fix boot sector.

First thing I recommend you download the demo version of
Partition Table Doctor.( http://www.ptdd.com/download.htm )

Run the program and right click the partition and choose fixboot.

For more detail:
http://www.ptdd.com/fixboot.htm
http://www.ptdd.com/mbr.htm
http://www.ptdd.com