This is a rather baffling problem. I have just received a new 80 GB hard disk from 
Western Digital, and have downloaded the software from their website and set the 
disk up.

The software successfully formated the disk and created the three partitions I wanted, 
each under 32 GB. I was trying to get a disk that, in a pinch, could be read by my 
WinXP machine, and I was told to create FAT32 partitions below 32GB each.

I don't want to format it as one huge partition of 80GB because I don't want 32K 
clusters, and I do want the option to reinstall Windows in the C: drive without any 
impact on my programs and data in the other two partitions.

I installed Win98SE onto the C: drive from a full install CD, and put the disk into 
my Win98SE machine, and then copied backups of all my programs and data from the 
aging Win98SE disk, as a backup in case the old disk should fail.

The PC recognised the new disk as 80GB at startup. And Windows recognised the C: 
partition (22GB) and the D: partition (29GB), but it steadfastly refused to recognise 
the E: partition (29GB).

The thing was, I had done a BIOS upgrade on the machine recently. It has an AWARD 
BIOS. The motherboard is a PAG-2130 made by FIC. I upgraded to a BIOS that they said 
could support a large disk exceeding 67GB, using a file from their website. The new 
BIOS details show up on startup, so it seems to have been successful.





On rebooting to DOS, DOS recognised all three partitions. On checking with the Western 
Digital boot/tools disk which I set up the disk with, by booting again with that, 
it also recognised all 3 partitions. And at boot time the BIOS startup screen saw 
the new disk (Primary Master) as 80GB.

The BIOS, incidentally, is set to "AUTO - LBA" in order to automatically detect the 
disk. I have also tried letting the configuration option in the BIOS detect the settings 
and using those (as USER instead of as AUTO) but with the same result.

In "My Computer" the third partition shows up as "(E:) Local Disk" (so not with its 
actual label of DRV1_VOL3), and when double-clicked it says: "E:\ is not accessible. 
A device attached to the system is not functioning."

Can anyone suggest why the third partition is not being recognised by Windows, even 
though it is recognised by DOS?

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

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]

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]

Morning Ken, Do you have a CD-ROM that might be claiming drive letter E under win but not under DOS? Don


On Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 11:46 am, Ken wrote:
>This is a rather baffling problem. I have just received a new 80 GB hard disk from
>Western Digital, and have downloaded the software from their website and set the
>disk up.
>
>The software successfully formated the disk and created the three partitions I wanted,
>each under 32 GB. I was trying to get a disk that, in a pinch, could be read by my
>WinXP machine, and I was told to create FAT32 partitions below 32GB each.
>
>I don't want to format it as one huge partition of 80GB because I don't want 32K
>clusters, and I do want the option to reinstall Windows in the C: drive without any
>impact on my programs and data in the other two partitions.
>
>I installed Win98SE onto the C: drive from a full install CD, and put the disk into
>my Win98SE machine, and then copied backups of all my programs and data from the
>aging Win98SE disk, as a backup in case the old disk should fail.
>
>The PC recognised the new disk as 80GB at startup. And Windows recognised the C:
>partition (22GB) and the D: partition (29GB), but it steadfastly refused to recognise
>the E: partition (29GB).
>
>The thing was, I had done a BIOS upgrade on the machine recently. It has an AWARD
>BIOS. The motherboard is a PAG-2130 made by FIC. I upgraded to a BIOS that they said
>could support a large disk exceeding 67GB, using a file from their website. The new
>BIOS details show up on startup, so it seems to have been successful.
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Friday, February 1, 2008 at 3:33 am, Don wrote:
|Do you have a CD-ROM that might be claiming drive |letter E under win but not under 
DOS? 

If he has a descent boot disk that should reconise the drives first then the CD Roms.

You could always used Fdisk for make your partitions but you need to download a newer 
version from Microsoft that recognises large drives.

Windows 98 & Large Hard Drives 

How to Delete a Primary Partition 
Without Removing the Extended Partition

Fdisk Update
 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Since it's a new disc, take Keith's advice and just re-partition it. You should also 
be able to use your xp disc to create FAT32 partitions.

If you do want to look into the MS-DOS Compatibility Mode, you can start here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/130179/EN-US/

NOTE: If I remember correctly, the first sector used by logical drive E: may be causing 
this. Shrink or enlarge D: by a gig if you still have the problem after FDISK.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

80GB is within W98's abilities--but not the ancient utilities that came with it.
The hexff link Keith included is the most readable page I have found on this. 
cache of http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php


Keith,
You are back to that weird formatting technique on your posts
where blockquotes get stripped for subsequent responders.
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum_post/win98/post?1201869448
You should delete the boilerplate you are using.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thank you one and all for the advice and suggestions.

In reply to Don's question, I do have a CD-ROM drive. But I have assigned that to 
drive F: in Windows, by using the Device Manager's option to set a drive letter for 
that device. And Windows is recognising the CD-ROM drive as F: in Explorer.

In reply to Keith's post and gewg's post, I didn't use FDISK to setup the new hard 
disk. I knew that the Win98 tools were not up to the job, so I used the program that 
Western Digital supplied, called "Data Lifeguard Tools 11.2 for DOS".

That program handled both the partitioning of the disk and the formatting of all 
three partitions: C, D and E. The Win98 tools FDISK and FORMAT were never involved.

Windows does recognise the drive E: partition, in Safe Mode. And it is accessible 
in Safe Mode. I can copy files to it, read them, and delete them. And it does also 
recognise that partition in protected mode (normal startup mode), but the partition 
is not accessible there.







On Friday, February 1, 2008 at 9:14 am, gewg_ wrote:

>80GB is within W98's abilities--but not the ancient utilities that came with it.

>The hexff link Keith included is the most readable page I have found on this. 
>href="http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:ukgGylGxghIJ:www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php+137GB+127GB+Windows.98.*.98SE+updating-*-*-*-program+Copyright+*-*-these-*-overflow-when-the-drive-size-is-*-*-*-larger-than-64GB+*-display-the-drive-size+FDISK-*-*-*-FORMAT-*-*+SCANDISK-*-DEFRAG+minus-64GB">

>cache of http://www.hexff.com/w98_hd.php

>

>

>Keith,

>You are back to that weird formatting technique on your posts

>where blockquotes get stripped for subsequent responders.

>http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum_post/win98/post?1201869448

>You should delete the boilerplate you are using.
 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thanks very much for your suggestions.

I'm not sure that repartitioning the disk will solve the problem. I only have the 
same Western Digital setup tools that I did the original partitioning with, so the 
outcome is likely to be the same.

Also, I don't want to repartition the disk as one massive 80GB partition, for the 
reasons that I mentioned in my original post.

I don't have an XP disk. All I have is a "Restore" DVD that will re-install WinXP 
from an iso file on the DVD. So I can't use any XP tools to do the partitioning. 
In any case, I would rather trust to the Western Digital tools that are specific 
to my new disk.

Regarding MS-DOS Compatibility Mode, thanks for the link in your post. In light of 
the comments on that Microsoft page, I checked the Performance tab in System Properties. 
The Details button said that drive E: is using an MS-DOS compatibility (real mode) 
driver.

I'm not sure where this real mode driver is being loaded from. There is nothing in 
AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS that is new, nor in SYSTEM.INI or Win.INI. Any thoughts?








On Friday, February 1, 2008 at 8:36 am, Jacob6601 wrote:

>Since it's a new disc, take Keith's advice and just re-partition it. You should 
also 

>be able to use your xp disc to create FAT32 partitions.

>

>If you do want to look into the MS-DOS Compatibility Mode, you can start here:

>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/130179/EN-US/

>

>NOTE: If I remember correctly, the first sector used by logical drive E: may be 
causing 

>this. Shrink or enlarge D: by a gig if you still have the problem after FDISK. 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Nobody ever said to re-partition differently, just using different tools. You could, 
in fact, leave the primary partition (c) alone. Just delete the logical drives and 
the extended partition -- then re-create them. If trying this is too difficult, then 
good luck!

And any real mode IDE drivers are in the BIOS.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Friday, February 1, 2008 at 9:14 am, gewg_ 
|Keith,
|You are back to that weird formatting technique on your posts
|where blockquotes get stripped for subsequent responders.

Sorry gewg_ I was in a hurry to post.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

What setting should I look for in the BIOS?

I did have a look at the options there (when I reconfigured it to recognise the new 
hard disk), but there was nothing that I thought I should change. There were a lot 
of options for peripherals, USB, etc. Certainly nothing obvious. What should I look 
for?

The disk tools from Western Digital only give an option to setup the disk as a whole. 
In order to make any later changes, they insist that you delete the partition table 
and start again. That would wipe out drive C as well as drives D and E. I'm not willing 
to do that as a first step, only as a last resort, because drive C: and D: are working 
fine.

I'm quite happy to use FDISK. I set up a disk under WinME for my mother last year, 
using the WinME version of FDISK. So I've now tried out the suggestion made earlier, 
to shrink or enlarge D: by a GB, using the updated version of FDISK to do it. But 
it has proved unsuccessful, as drive E: is still not being recognised.

The Microsoft article which was suggested led me on to more information. An article 
at http://www.infinisource.com/techfiles/msdos-compatibility.html has advised looking 
for BAD_IDE values in the registry. I found some, at

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\hdc\0000 

and now am wondering whether I should just delete the value or the entire key?

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Class\hdc\0000]
"DriverDesc"="Standard IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller"
"DevLoader"="*IOS"
"PortDriver"="ESDI_506.pdr"
"IDEDMADrive0"=hex:01
"IDEDMADrive1"=hex:01
"InfPath"="MSHDC.INF"
"InfSection"="BAD_IDE"
"ProviderName"="Microsoft"
"DriverDate"=" 6- 8-1999"
"MatchingDeviceId"="*PNP0600"

There is another BAD_IDE value at \hdc\0003 - once again the value is "InfSection"="BAD_IDE". 
I guess hdc means hard disk controller.

The Microsoft article identifies the file ESDI_506.pdr as being the driver that provides 
32-bit disk access for IDE and EIDE disks under Windows 98. Yet on looking in the 
Bootlog, I can find no trace of ESDI_506.pdr being loaded at boot time. This seems 
to show that it's not providing 32-bit disk functions!

Device Manager indicates that disk functions for the Western Digital disk are provided 
by C:\WINDOWS\INF\DISKDRV.INF (a text file which contains no reference to ESDI_506.pdr, 
nor any other file).

However, despite its presence in the Windows registry, the PC doesn't use a "Standard 
IDE/ESDI Hard Disk Controller". According to the entries in Device Manager, the PC 
uses a "VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller" for the Western Digital disk. This has 
its own drivers. So are the BAD_IDE values actually relevent? 








On Friday, February 1, 2008 at 3:06 pm, Jacob6601 wrote:

>Nobody ever said to re-partition differently, just using different tools. You could, 

>in fact, leave the primary partition (c) alone. Just delete the logical drives and 

>the extended partition -- then re-create them. If trying this is too difficult, 
then 

>good luck!

>

>And any real mode IDE drivers are in the BIOS. 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

The base IDE drivers in BIOS are not user adjustable; There is nothing you can do 
in there.

Go here and look for the link "Microsoft" to download the Emergency Recovery Utility:
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/windows95/start-27.html
NT systems: http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/

This program may initially direct you to the floppy drive, but a disc will not hold 
a complete backup. Re-direct it to a hard disc folder, usually c:\erd. Then, if you 
cannot re-start after modifications, boot to "safe mode command prompt" and run C:\ERD\ERD. 
This will re-set your registry where you started.

Then go ahead and try deleting the entries mentioned at
http://www.helpwithwindows.com/techfiles/msdos-compatibility.html. 
I **think** this can be accomplished by deleting all IDE drivers in the device manager 
and re-booting, esssentially re-installing them.

NOTE: Say a prayer first! I do believe I ended up re-installing windows (several 
times) the one time I have seen this issue on a single partition. If the whole drive 
is affected, it is usually because an optical drive is on the same IDE channel (cable).

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

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