Strange formatting problem...please read.

[archagon]

Something strange happened to my comp. I have 2 drives - 1 60GB (main)
and 1 20GB (secondary). Anyways, I tried converting drive 2 to NTFS
and formatting it, and it looked like it finished, but at the last
precentile it said it could not complete the procedure. Then drive D
disappeared from My Computer. After a reset, I discovered that BOTH my
drives had disappeared...the computer could not find them (IDE 0, I
think). After I turned my computer off, I noticed that my USB mouse
WAS STILL ON for some strange reason. This was very odd, so I reset
the power cord. Lo and behold! Both drives are back up, and D: even
has all the files which were supposedly deleted.

My questions are:
1) Why did my drives disappear?
2) What was the computer doing when it supposedly was formatting my
drive?
3) What's with the "ghost mouse"?

What the heck happened?!

 

[archagon]

Something strange happened to my comp. I have 2 drives - 1 60GB (main)
and 1 20GB (secondary). Anyways, I tried converting drive 2 to NTFS
and formatting it, and it looked like it finished, but at the last
precentile it said it could not complete the procedure. Then drive D
disappeared from My Computer. After a reset, I discovered that BOTH my
drives had disappeared...the computer could not find them (IDE 0, I
think). After I turned my computer off, I noticed that my USB mouse
WAS STILL ON for some strange reason. This was very odd, so I reset
the power cord. Lo and behold! Both drives are back up, and D: even
has all the files which were supposedly deleted.

My questions are:
1) Why did my drives disappear?
2) What was the computer doing when it supposedly was formatting my
drive?
3) What's with the "ghost mouse"?

What the heck happened?!

Ack! I tried it again - same result! Also, it seems like my mouse
(actually, I lied - it's using a USB->PS2 connector) is on after I
turn my comp off even without the format thing!!

Help? How should I format drive D: and fix all this wierd stuff?

 

[archagon]

Ack! I tried it again - same result! Also, it seems like my mouse
(actually, I lied - it's using a USB->PS2 connector) is on after I
turn my comp off even without the format thing!!

Help? How should I format drive D: and fix all this wierd stuff?

One more thing - whenever I go into DOS from a boot disk, drive D:
always shows as drive C:

 

[C.Joseph Drayton]

Hi Archagon,

Your 'c' drive is probably formatted NTFS and your drive 'd' is FAT32. Dos can not see a NTFS drive so the first drive becomes
your first FAT32 drive.

Ciao . . .
C.Joseph

++ Let know man judge me until . . .
he has walked the road I have . . .
in the shoes I've worn. ++

http://kalek1.home.mindspring.com

 

[archagon]

Thanks! That clears things up a bit. But now I have more questions...

1) What's with the problem I described in post 1?
2) If I format D: as C: in DOS, will everything be fine on the "real"
C:?
3) If my computer goes kaput and both my drives are NTFS, will I be
able to somehow access them from DOS (using some program on a floppy,
maybe?)

 

[C.Joseph Drayton]

Hi Archagon,

I'm not sure why your hard disks disappeared. You might start by checking to see if the are recognized by the BIOS (My guess is
they are since you can log into Windows). If they are, then go to 'Computer Management' and assign them drive letters.

Theoretically, there should not be a problem if it is formated without an OS and is simply going to be used for data. If you
want to to set it up as a dual boot, that is a different story.

I have had to rescue a data from NTFS volumes, and I rely on NTFS Reader for that purpose. Note though that if the files are
encrypted, you are out of luck. As a side note, I have my clients encrypt their data at the end of the work day, but they use
ABI Coder for that.

Ciao . . .
C.Joseph

++ Let know man judge me until . . .
he has walked the road I have . . .
in the shoes I've worn. ++

http://kalek1.home.mindspring.com