Weird Disk Configuration with Clean Install 98SE

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Peter French - 26 Sep 2004 00:54 GMT

My system has two physically identical hard drives, C and
D, plus a CDROM designated E:. I formatted C and did a
clean install of 98SE. However, for some reason it created
a new hard drive named E: and labelled the CDROM as F:

C: is ok and contains Windows and the programs.
D: shows as a zero byte capacity drive & cannot be accessed
E: is actually former drive D with its files.

What might have caused this and how can I get back the
original drive designations?

Thanks, Peter

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Jeff Richards - 26 Sep 2004 01:12 GMT

Open a DOS window and do FDISK /STATUS and report the results.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

> My system has two physically identical hard drives, C and
> D, plus a CDROM designated E:. I formatted C and did a
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
>
> Thanks, Peter

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Peter French - 27 Sep 2004 16:49 GMT

Results of FDISK/Status check. Shows Disk1 as One
Partitition: C; Status A; Type: PRIDOS; MB 29322; Usage
100%. Shows Disk2 with 2 Partitions: D1: Status blank;
Type PRIDOS, MB 8; System: unknown; Usage blank; -- D2:
Status blank; Type EXTDOS; MB 29314; System blank; Usage
100%. Also shows Logical Drive E with 29314 MB, FAT32,
100% usage.
I hope this information is enough that you can tell what's
up and how to get back to just drives C and D.

>-----Original Message-----
>Open a DOS window and do FDISK /STATUS and report the results.
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
>.

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Jeff Richards - 27 Sep 2004 22:51 GMT

You have created two DOS partitions on the second hard drive. The first is
a primary DOS partition that FDISK labels as D. The second is a logical
drive within an extended partition that FDISK has labelled E.

If the second hard disk drive has no data then you could delete all the
partitioning and start over. Create _either_ a single DOS partition, _or_
an extended partition with a single logical drive.

This can happen with new hard disk drives where the manufacturer creates a
special diagnostic partition. It can also happen where the drive was the
primary drive in a system that used a fast restart procedure that saved
memory to disk. These drives need to have existing partitioning removed
before being re-partitioned.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

> Results of FDISK/Status check. Shows Disk1 as One
> Partitition: C; Status A; Type: PRIDOS; MB 29322; Usage
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> I hope this information is enough that you can tell what's
> up and how to get back to just drives C and D.

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Peter French - 27 Sep 2004 23:52 GMT

Thank you very much. I feel a lot better!

>-----Original Message-----
>You have created two DOS partitions on the second hard drive. The first is
[quoted text clipped - 21 lines]
>
>.

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Peter French - 28 Sep 2004 15:31 GMT

Silly me - I thought that would be easy. However, when I
went to delete the existing partitions on Drive 2 I got
the message "Could not change partitions because the drive
could not be locked." This means nothing to me - any next
steps, please.

>-----Original Message-----
>Thank you very much. I feel a lot better!
[quoted text clipped - 36 lines]
>>
>.

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Jeff Richards - 28 Sep 2004 22:43 GMT

Are you running FDISK after booting to a startup floppy? An option is to
press and hold Ctrl as Windows boots then select Command prompt from the
Windows startup menu, then run FDISK.

Be very careful to select drive 2 (option 5 on the FDISK menu, from memory)
and repeatedly check that you are still working with drive 2 before you
select each option.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)

> Silly me - I thought that would be easy. However, when I
> went to delete the existing partitions on Drive 2 I got
[quoted text clipped - 43 lines]
>>>
>>.

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Peter French - 30 Sep 2004 13:04 GMT

Thanks again. The secret was running pure dos from a
startup disk. FDISK worked perfect and the system is now
back in its original state, running as happily as 98 can!

>-----Original Message-----
>Are you running FDISK after booting to a startup floppy? An option is to
[quoted text clipped - 53 lines]
>
>.

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