Dick Splash Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 OK, after reinstalling Windows on a newly formatted C drive, I've discovered I now have two new drives, but they're not there. Let me explain; I should have a partioned 20GB C drive which is C (80%) and D (20%) and a 160GB E. The latter is a new one that I've installed recently. After eventually figuring out how to format my C drive for a fresh install of windows, I don't know what I did wrong, but I've accidentally created two extra drives in My Computer; C is still C D E which was D F which was E G When you click on the two marked in red it shows no info other than local drive. When you double click on them, an error message comes up saying that it's unaccessable or something. What did I do wrong here, and how can I remove them both and just get back to C, D, and E? DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CR6 Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 This is where Disk Management in WinXP would come in handy. Can't remember if there was an equivalent available in Win98SE? DS, how many optical drives do you have and what letter are they named? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Splash Posted August 25, 2006 Author Share Posted August 25, 2006 This is where Disk Management in WinXP would come in handy. Can't remember if there was an equivalent available in Win98SE? DS, how many optical drives do you have and what letter are they named? I have two Sonys', a CD burner and a CD burner/DVD ROM. They are 'H' and 'I' respectively. DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHaired Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 You can get more info about those drives when you boot on the floppy disk. Once it's in the "A" prompt, type FDISK and then choose option 4. That'll give an overview of the drives as well what type of drive it is (primary, logical, extended) Maybe that gives a clue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
th33f. Posted August 25, 2006 Share Posted August 25, 2006 well, those extra partitions didn't appear by themselves. you creted them, DS, probably while trying to format in the setup. there is a very powerful and easy to use tool available, called Norton Partition Magic, and it works on all Windows. should help you sort out the mess... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CR6 Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 You can get more info about those drives when you boot on the floppy disk. Once it's in the "A" prompt, type FDISK and then choose option 4. That'll give an overview of the drives as well what type of drive it is (primary, logical, extended) Maybe that gives a clue. Ah yes, good ol' FDISK. Good tip. DS, you will prob. have to leave those partitions unless you want to do a new reformat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WytchDokta Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 If it's any help, my drivebay mounted fan controller unit shows up in My Computer as and additional drive - Drive "F" to be precise and the only physical drives I got are two DVD drives ("D" & "E" respectively) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Splash Posted August 29, 2006 Author Share Posted August 29, 2006 I've discovered that when I empty my recycle bin, I'm asked if I want to format my D drive. I click no, and then I'm asked if I want to format my G drive! What's all that about? DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHaired Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 Spooky....Sounds like those drives have been created one way or the other, but you cannot use them as long as they're not formatted. Can only recommend my earlier suggestion to boot on the floppy and via FDISK find out what drives are on you hdd and if the total volume corresponds to the size of the hdd. For a start you'll know if it fits size wise or not and if it does fit, just return to the "A" prompt and format those drives. Alternatively like th33f suggested, install partition magic to resize unused space on your hdd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Splash Posted August 30, 2006 Author Share Posted August 30, 2006 OK, I disconnected both optical drives and the new hard drive, leaving the original hard drive connected only. When I checked My Computer, it showed only C and D, which was great. I then plugged in the new hard drive and strangely enough, everything went 'wrong' again. What's going on? When I double click on the D and G drives an error message appears "A device attached to the system is not functioning. When I right click on either of them I see that 0 space is used and that there is 0 free space too. This second hard drive seems to be the key doesn't it? DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHaired Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Did you set that second hdd as "slave"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Splash Posted August 30, 2006 Author Share Posted August 30, 2006 Did you set that second hdd as "slave"? Yes, and it was easy to install. The two 'non' drives appeared after I formatted the C drive the other day. Now, I've heard a rumoUr and read last night that 98SE doesn't support hard drives over 137GB, and there is a mention of that in the install instructions. It's a 160GB drive, so I'm going to phone Western Digital today for advice. If this is the reason, then why did it accept the drive in the first place. Although it does show that it's a 127GB hard drive when I click on it in My Computer. ...hmmmmmm. DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WhiteKnight77 Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 There is a limit on HD size for 98SE. I had forgotten all about that myself. Time to get Partition Magic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Splash Posted August 31, 2006 Author Share Posted August 31, 2006 Well, I phoned Western Digital's support line. It's free for 30 days after your first contact with them. I was advised to reboot my PC with the CD that came with the hard drive and then choose the new hard drive and take it from there or whatever. My PC wouldn't boot from the CD even though I changed the BIOS, so I changed the BIOS back and then created a boot floppy from the CD. I then booted the PC with the floppy and then went through the process. When I got back into Windows I found that the C was still there, the new HD was D and the old D was now E. I was told that Windows dictated this and that I couldn't change it. It is something you can do, however, in 2k and XP! At least those virtual drives have gone. Thanks all for helping once again. DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreyHaired Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 Glad you solved it. I was convinced the size part could be handled by partition magic. If I remember correctly, XP had this size problem as well, until SP1 was launched. Most of all: hats of for your dedication to win98SE. It took me a long time to swap to XP, mainly for hardware support reasons. Win98SE never let me down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KRP 56 Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 (edited) I've discovered that when I empty my recycle bin, I'm asked if I want to format my D drive. I click no, and then I'm asked if I want to format my G drive! What's all that about? DS Strange. Here's another one to ponder. This only happens sometimes after sending music files that I've played on WMP 9 to the recycle bin. I'll empty the recycle bin but it still shows something in the recycle bin icon. When I double click to open the recycle bin to see what's in there it shows nothing. So I try to empty it again and it ask's me if I want to delete Windows. Edited August 31, 2006 by KRP 56 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CR6 Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 Strange. Here's another one to ponder. This only happens sometimes after sending music files that I've played on WMP 9 to the recycle bin. I'll empty the recycle bin but it still shows something in the recycle bin icon. When I double click to open the recycle bin to see what's in there it shows nothing. So I try to empty it again and it ask's me if I want to delete Windows. Do you have more than one user login for the computer? If you delete your stuff in the recycle bin, other users data in the recycle bin may not be deleted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dick Splash Posted September 1, 2006 Author Share Posted September 1, 2006 Do you have more than one user login for the computer? If you delete your stuff in the recycle bin, other users data in the recycle bin may not be deleted.Oo blimey!....nothing's ever straight forward is it? Do you think life forms from other worlds have such problems with their technology ? DS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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