XP Home Upgrade from Win 98 SE -- can't access 2nd hard drive

[Guest]

I have (relevant to my question, anyway):
C drive = 60GB Western Digital used as main drive (including Windows files)
D drive = 120GB Western Digitial used primarily to store mp3s, jpgs, etc.

Two large drives, but both under the magical 137GB threshhold. Everything
worked well in Windows 98 SE. However, when I upgraded to XP Home today, I
seem to have lost access to the D drive. The drive appears in Windows
Explorer, but I cannot access the files on it (in fact, when I try to access
it the pop-up message asks if I want to format it -- uh, no thanks!).

A few (hopefully) helpful facts: A check of Properties in Disk Manager shows
my C: drive as Disk 0 using FAT32 file structure (shows the full 60GB
capacity). The D: drive showed as Disk 1 but did not specify file structure
(blank) and was only showing as 32GB capacity (and 0% used). Device Manager
says the D drive is working properly. I believe the C drive is cabled as the
Master and the D is the Slave; jumper settings should be correct as the drive
worked fine prior to the upgrade. D drive probably has about 10 - 20 GB of
data stored.

My #1 question: How can I get my system to recognize the D drive again,
without having to reformat and losing or having to restore from backup the
data already stored there? I'm guessing there has to be a way as I would
imagine you could swap out drives and be able to access existing data...

Also, is there any reason for my C drive to be FAT32 if I'm not using Win 98
anymore? If I Convert it, will this help solve problem #1?

Any help would be much appreciated,

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Kerry Brown]

I have (relevant to my question, anyway):
C drive = 60GB Western Digital used as main drive (including Windows
files) D drive = 120GB Western Digitial used primarily to store mp3s,
jpgs, etc.

Two large drives, but both under the magical 137GB threshhold.
Everything worked well in Windows 98 SE. However, when I upgraded to
XP Home today, I seem to have lost access to the D drive. The drive
appears in Windows Explorer, but I cannot access the files on it (in
fact, when I try to access it the pop-up message asks if I want to
format it -- uh, no thanks!).

A few (hopefully) helpful facts: A check of Properties in Disk
Manager shows my C: drive as Disk 0 using FAT32 file structure (shows
the full 60GB capacity). The D: drive showed as Disk 1 but did not
specify file structure (blank) and was only showing as 32GB capacity
(and 0% used). Device Manager says the D drive is working properly.
I believe the C drive is cabled as the Master and the D is the Slave;
jumper settings should be correct as the drive worked fine prior to
the upgrade. D drive probably has about 10 - 20 GB of data stored.

My #1 question: How can I get my system to recognize the D drive
again, without having to reformat and losing or having to restore
from backup the data already stored there? I'm guessing there has to
be a way as I would imagine you could swap out drives and be able to
access existing data...

Also, is there any reason for my C drive to be FAT32 if I'm not using
Win 98 anymore? If I Convert it, will this help solve problem #1?

Any help would be much appreciated,

Thanks,
Dan

When the drives were originally setup in Windows 98 was any disk overlay
software used? i.e. Ontrack.

Kerry

 

[Guest]

When the drives were originally setup in Windows 98 was any disk overlay
software used? i.e. Ontrack.

Kerry

I used Western Digital's tools when I set up the drive (Data Lifeguard Tools
I believe). Not sure if that would be considered disk overlay software or
not. I did just find something on their support website that describes the
problem (Comments in parentheses are mine):

[From Western Digital's Knowledgebase]
Problem:
The hard drive is inaccessible and is shown with a "Raw" format in Disk
Management under Windows 2000, XP, or 2003. (Note -- this is true, I did get
a message that it was "Raw" format)

Cause:
This issue indicates that the partition table on the hard drive has become
corrupt or damaged. While the data may still remain on the physical hard
drive, it will not be accessible through normal operating system access
methods. This issue can be caused by the following reasons:

Viruses or spyware on the computer. (Nope)

If the hard drive is physically failing or there are media errors on the
drive. (Nope)

If the computer does not support the hard drive capacity correctly. (So far)

If the BIOS is not configured correctly for the hard drive (Possible as well)


Resolution:
To ensure that the hard drive is working correctly and free from physical
defects, please test the drive following the directions in Article ID 59. If
no errors are detected by our diagnostics, the hard drive is physically
working correctly. You will need to use a data recovery program or data
recovery company to access and recover the data from the hard drive. Once
data recovery has been performed, we recommend low-level formatting the hard
drive with our diagnostics from the directions in Article ID 1211 before
repartitioning and reformatting the drive for usage again.
[End from Western Digital's Knowledgebase]

Based on that tidbit of info, I'm thinking that the best course of action
would be to revert back to 98 SE (which is still possible because I did not
convert to NTFS yet), copy the contents of D to C (I have plenty of room on
C), and then re-install XP and format D as a clean slate. Provided Win 98
will still recognize the drive when I revert back, this seems like it would
be the best way to at least save all of my files on D (which, admittedly, I
didn't back up because they aren't critical, though are still worth trying to
retrieve).

Any thoughts about or obvious flaws in this approach?

Thanks,
Dan

 

[Kerry Brown]

When the drives were originally setup in Windows 98 was any disk
overlay software used? i.e. Ontrack.

Kerry

I used Western Digital's tools when I set up the drive (Data
Lifeguard Tools I believe). Not sure if that would be considered
disk overlay software or not. I did just find something on their
support website that describes the problem (Comments in parentheses
are mine):

[From Western Digital's Knowledgebase]
Problem:
The hard drive is inaccessible and is shown with a "Raw" format in
Disk Management under Windows 2000, XP, or 2003. (Note -- this is
true, I did get a message that it was "Raw" format)

Cause:
This issue indicates that the partition table on the hard drive has
become corrupt or damaged. While the data may still remain on the
physical hard drive, it will not be accessible through normal
operating system access methods. This issue can be caused by the
following reasons:

Viruses or spyware on the computer. (Nope)

If the hard drive is physically failing or there are media errors on
the drive. (Nope)

If the computer does not support the hard drive capacity correctly.
(So far)

If the BIOS is not configured correctly for the hard drive (Possible
as well)


Resolution:
To ensure that the hard drive is working correctly and free from
physical defects, please test the drive following the directions in
Article ID 59. If no errors are detected by our diagnostics, the hard
drive is physically working correctly. You will need to use a data
recovery program or data recovery company to access and recover the
data from the hard drive. Once data recovery has been performed, we
recommend low-level formatting the hard drive with our diagnostics
from the directions in Article ID 1211 before repartitioning and
reformatting the drive for usage again. [End from Western Digital's
Knowledgebase]

Based on that tidbit of info, I'm thinking that the best course of
action would be to revert back to 98 SE (which is still possible
because I did not convert to NTFS yet), copy the contents of D to C
(I have plenty of room on C), and then re-install XP and format D as
a clean slate. Provided Win 98 will still recognize the drive when I
revert back, this seems like it would be the best way to at least
save all of my files on D (which, admittedly, I didn't back up
because they aren't critical, though are still worth trying to
retrieve).

Any thoughts about or obvious flaws in this approach?

Thanks,
Dan

What size does the computer BIOS report for both hard drives? I suspect your
BIOS is pretty old and doesn't handle LBA properly. When you installed the
drives with the WD Data Lifeguard Tools it probably installed a drive
overlay to get around this problem. Another possibility is the second drive
has a jumper in place to report the drive only has 65536 cylinders. This is
another attempt to get around this old limit of around 32 GB. I would
download the latest version of the utilities from Western Digital and see
what it reports about your drives and BIOS before going any farther.

Kerry