Thanks for the suggestion. It has formatted okay: DOS reports 29 GB of disk space 
free; and when I boot the computer into Safe Mode, Windows too recognises drive E: 
as 29GB.

In Protected mode, Windows says that drive E is using compatibility mode. It won't 
let me access that drive, but it does recognise that it exists: it gives it an Icon 
in Explorer, and Device Manager's Performance tab says "Drive E is using MS-DOS compatibility 
mode file system".

There are no entries in my CONFIG.SYS file, so there is no real mode driver loading. 
Anyway, I would expect that to affect all 3 partitions on the disk, not just one 
of them. There's nothing obvious in SYSTEM.INI that might be loading a real mode 
driver either.

What device driver might be loading that causes the problem, that isn't being loaded 
in safe mode? I see that of course in safe mode all 3 partitions are being indicated 
as using MS-DOS compatibility mode.








On Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 5:52 pm, Jacob6601 wrote:

>Try formatting it again. Any read or write operation (in DOS) should fail if this 

>is the problem. 

• Reply or follow-up to this message

• Search this forum
• Start a new thread on a different subject

• Report abuse of the forum