New HDD question

[TouchNova]

I just installed a second HDD on my system. I hooked it up, auto-recognized
in BIOS, then partitioned and formatted. It's now being recognized in My
Computer, but as two separate drives, F: and H:. When I partitioned the
drive, I allocated all available space to one partition and named it H:.
This strange mock drive called F: isn't being recognized in Disk Management,
but it's there in My Computer. It also says that both F: and H: have 114GB
of free space, but that would be 228GB of new space and I only purchased a
120GB drive. When I unplug the drive, F: disappears along with H:. Is the
8Mb XP uses for its System Volume information or whatever, is that being
given a drive letter assignment inadvertently? I just want one new letter
for my one new drive. Thanks for any help you can offer.

TouchNova

 

[Aaron With No Clue]

I don't claim to know very much, but when you partition a
drive, the computer thinks it has two hard drives, and
consequently will give it two drive letters. That is the
way my C:\ and D:\ drive are. One hard drive
partitioned. If you only want one hard drove letter to
appear, do not partition it... This may be totally wrong,
but it may help....

 

[wojo]

That's not exactly true.
You HAVE to partition your drive in order to format it and use it.
What your thinking about is that you can create more than one partition on a
drive and hence create more drive letters that would appear to be separate
drives. If you only want one letter only create one partition using all
available unallocated space.

 

[TouchNova]

Hey wojo,

I'm still facing this problem, as you can see. My latest effort has been to
not assign a drive letter when I create a new volume and allocate the entire
space to it. This solves the issue of seeing both the F: drive and the H:
drive in my computer, but I don't know if that solves my underlying problem.

Thanks,
TouchNova

 

[wojo]

Yours is one that's difficult to comprehend without actually having the
computer in front of me but that sounds like a workable solution.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I don't claim to know very much, but when you partition a
drive, the computer thinks it has two hard drives, and
consequently will give it two drive letters. That is the
way my C:\ and D:\ drive are. One hard drive
partitioned. If you only want one hard drove letter to
appear, do not partition it... This may be totally wrong,

A clarification: You are correct conceptually, but wrong in the
details. That's because the verb "partition" doesn't mean what
you (and many others) apparently think it does.

To "partition" a drive does not mean to divide it into two or
more partitions, it means to create *one* or more partitions on
it. You can't use a drive until it's been partitioned, because
until you've done that, there is not even a C: drive there.

Many people use the word loosely, using it to mean creating
multiple partitions. That's OK, as long as you understand what's
really involved. If for example, you have a 60GB drive and you
want it all to be one FAT32 drive, Windows won't create it for
you (it has a 32GB limit) you have to use an old copy of FDISK to
*partition* it (creating a single partition) before you can
format that partition.

 

[dglock]

"(it has a 32GB limit) you have to use an old copy of
FDISK to"

thats not true, either!
i have a 250mb hard drive with fat32 file system.
the problem you refer to was fixed in sp-1
don

 

[DUH]

Your name say it all, you really don't have a clue and should not be giving
out advice.

 

[wojo]

And YOUR name also says it all.

Your name say it all, you really don't have a clue and should not be
giving
out advice.

message

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

"(it has a 32GB limit) you have to use an old copy of
FDISK to"

thats not true, either!

It is indeed true. Windows XP can *not* create a FAT32 partition
larger than 32GB, as I said.

i have a 250mb hard drive with fat32 file system.

Windows XP has always been able to use FAT32 partitions larger
than 32GB, if they were created externally. The point I made is
that it can not create them. Is your drive (I assume you mean
250GB, not MB) in a single partition or multiple ones? If
multiple partitions all smaller than 32GB, you could have created
them in XP. If a single partition, I'm sure it existed before you
installed XP.

the problem you refer to was fixed in sp-1

No. there is no problem to fix. Whether or not you agree with
this, this is done by design, and it works exactly the same way
without SP1 and with it.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

 

[Alex Nichol]

I just installed a second HDD on my system. I hooked it up, auto-recognized
in BIOS, then partitioned and formatted. It's now being recognized in My
Computer, but as two separate drives, F: and H:. When I partitioned the
drive, I allocated all available space to one partition and named it H:.
This strange mock drive called F: isn't being recognized in Disk Management,
but it's there in My Computer. It also says that both F: and H: have 114GB
of free space, but that would be 228GB of new space and I only purchased a
120GB drive. When I unplug the drive, F: disappears along with H:. Is the
8Mb XP uses for its System Volume information or whatever, is that being
given a drive letter assignment inadvertently?

The odd 8MB is just slack space left after the initial master sector of
the physical disk, so that partitions start on a cylinder boundary.

There is a quirk arisen in My Computer's display here. What I think
may have happened is that the 'naming' of the partition as H did not get
picked up when the system booted, so that XP's regular enumeration got
in on the act and enumerated it as F - before H got picked up later.
The matter will be reflected in a duplicated line for the drive, under
each letter, in the registry, and what I suggest is that you run
regedit.exe and open to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Mounted Devices

Highlight that and file - Export,so you could restore it if need be, and
then in the right pane look for 'DosDevices\F:', highlight that and
delete. Then reboot

 

[TouchNova]

Alex, I think you're the first person to really understand my dilemma and
address it appropriately. People have been great, offering suggestions and
possible remedies, but yours really addresses the multiplicity issue of the
new drive where it counts. Thank you, I will attempt your method and
respond accordingly.

Regards,
TouchNova

 

[TouchNova]

I did just that. I went in with regedit and deleted F:, but to no avail. I
did it both with H: intact and after deleting the volum in Disk Management.
I got Partition Magic and it tells me "The selected disk contains one or
more partitions which cannot be moved." Also, it's coming up as a dynamic
disk rather than NTFS, but that might just be because I deleted the volume
in Disk Management and am now looking at it after the fact. Any other
suggestions?

Thanks,
TouchNova

 

[TouchNova]

I believe a have finally solved my problem. When I wrote the previous
response to you, something seemed strange when I typed out "dynamic" that
got in my head. Long story shot, the drive was somehow assigned to be
dynamic rather than basic. I don't think that I'm responsible for this, but
I know things don't just change on their own (usually). Regardless, my new
HDD now seems to be operating perfectly. Talk about the long road to
finding out about dynamic drives and RAID 5 and such....

Thanks for your help. It may, literally, have been the spark that got it
done.

TouchNova