Computer Hardware/Hard Drive Question

[Dillinger]

Great - thanks again. I'm not ready to pull my computer apart again tonight - will try it in the morning.

 

[Dillinger]

Well - I'm almost there... actually, I am there but a new problem has cropped up.

I really appreciate everyone's help... THANK YOU!

So here's what happened. I was able to partition and format the second hard drive from the start up disk - no problem!

Now when I opened my computer I had the following configuration:

A: Floppy
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: Iomega Jaz
E: Secondary Hard Drive
F: CD Drive
G: CD Rewritable.

Not too bad but... I figured the secondary drive should be the D Drive? So I couldn't figure out how to rename the secondary hard drive but I was able to rename the Jaz drive. I gave it the drive letter H: and rebooted... now my configuration looks liek this:


A: Floppy
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: ???? - It list a non-existant removable drive...
E: Secondary Hard Drive
F: CD Drive
G: CD Rewritable
H: Jaz Drive

Any idea how I can get the Secondary Drive to be the D: drive and why there is a non-existent removable drive occupying D?

 

[woodgie2]

My hap'orth of evangalism

[evangalise]
Fuck me..!

And people still dump on the Mac as a computing platform.

Just to be really annoying, I have a Mac with 4 SCSI hard disks and 2 ATA disks and didn't have any problems installing them at all...
[/evangalise]

(how many posts are there going to be telling me to shut up, I wonder, before people realise I'm only playing?)

 

[Dillinger]

I have 2 macs at home too. And, along with my Win98 desktop I have a Win2000 laptop. They all serve their purposes. Nothing beats the Mac for graphic design (except maybe Silicon Graphics).

 

[Orlanth]

Thanks! I've got it running as a slave drive... now I've got another problem.

Whenever I try to format the drive - the second drive which is now the D drive - I get the following message:

"Windows cannot format this drive. Quit any disk utilities and other programs that are using this drive and make sure that no window is displaying the contents of this drive. Then try formatting again."

Any ideas? Do I need to format from the dos prompt? (If so, what is the command?) - Do I need to do it from FDISK?

Thanks in advance for any help.

What I would do is go into MS DOS.

Then I would type in FORMAT D:

Which should format it.

 

[Dillinger]

Its formatted - its just that Windows insists on labelling it the E drive.

 

[Orlanth]

Well - I'm almost there... actually, I am there but a new problem has cropped up.

I really appreciate everyone's help... THANK YOU!

So here's what happened. I was able to partition and format the second hard drive from the start up disk - no problem!

Now when I opened my computer I had the following configuration:

A: Floppy
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: Iomega Jaz
E: Secondary Hard Drive
F: CD Drive
G: CD Rewritable.

Not too bad but... I figured the secondary drive should be the D Drive? So I couldn't figure out how to rename the secondary hard drive but I was able to rename the Jaz drive. I gave it the drive letter H: and rebooted... now my configuration looks liek this:


A: Floppy
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: ???? - It list a non-existant removable drive...
E: Secondary Hard Drive
F: CD Drive
G: CD Rewritable
H: Jaz Drive

Any idea how I can get the Secondary Drive to be the D: drive and why there is a non-existent removable drive occupying D?

What you clould do, is right click on the drives, go to "properties" and change the labels for the drives. I wouldn't worry about the letter.

Like change D: Jazz Drive to D: Secondary Ha rd Drive.
And do the same to E: Drive.

 

[Orlanth]

Re: My hap'orth of evangalism

[evangalise]
Fuck me..!

And people still dump on the Mac as a computing platform.

Just to be really annoying, I have a Mac with 4 SCSI hard disks and 2 ATA disks and didn't have any problems installing them at all...
[/evangalise]

(how many posts are there going to be telling me to shut up, I wonder, before people realise I'm only playing?)

Personaly, I don't like Macs... I prefer Linux, then Windows.

 

[Dillinger]

What you clould do, is right click on the drives, go to "properties" and change the labels for the drives. I wouldn't worry about the letter.

Like change D: Jazz Drive to D: Secondary Ha rd Drive.
And do the same to E: Drive.

That is not an active option for the two Hard Drives - though it is for the CD Drives and the Jaz Drive.

The Letter is actually important when it comes to installed programs looking for files and dlls.

 

[Orlanth]

That is not an active option for the two Hard Drives - though it is for the CD Drives and the Jaz Drive.

The Letter is actually important when it comes to installed programs looking for files and dlls.

I don't mean chang e the letter of the drive , just change the label.

 

[Dillinger]

But I do need to change the drive letters - otherwise there will be a relationship problem between installed programs and where items are installed/saved if the drive letters change again.

 

[Orlanth]

If you already installed things on the drives, I wouldn't change the letters or anything.

 

[Dillinger]

Nope... only the C drive has anything installed. The second drive is a slave drive. I want it to be the D drive. I know there is a way to do that, but I can't remember how.

And I want to fix the Letter assignment before I actually put anything on that drive so there won't be any problems later on.

 

[Orlanth]

If there isn't anything installed on the 2nd hard drive, then changing the labels or drive letters wont hurt anything on the first hard drive.

You not changing C: (Master).... Your changing the 2nd hard drive, D : and E: (Slave (which has nothing on it). Changing D: and E: won t bother C: at all.

 

[Dillinger]

You're missing the point. I WANT to change the letter - but I can't - here is my post again:

Well - I'm almost there... actually, I am there but a new problem has cropped up.

I really appreciate everyone's help... THANK YOU!

So here's what happened. I was able to partition and format the second hard drive from the start up disk - no problem!

Now when I opened my computer I had the following configuration:

A: Floppy
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: Iomega Jaz
E: Secondary Hard Drive
F: CD Drive
G: CD Rewritable.

Not too bad but... I figured the secondary drive should be the D Drive? So I couldn't figure out how to rename the secondary hard drive but I was able to rename the Jaz drive. I gave it the drive letter H: and rebooted... now my configuration looks like this:

A: Floppy
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: ???? - It list a non-existant removable drive...
E: Secondary Hard Drive
F: CD Drive
G: CD Rewritable
H: Jaz Drive

Any idea how I can get the Secondary Drive to be the D: drive and why there is a non-existent removable drive occupying D?

 

[Orlanth]

You CAN'T change the drive letters in Windows 98, I have only done it Windows 2000 and XP Pro.

You can CHANGE the Drive LABELS with going to the drive properties.

Or go into MS DOS, format D: and give it the label you want, and do the same for E:.

 

[Dillinger]

Ah.. OK! Got it... thanks! *smile*

 

[Weird Harold]

Well - I'm almost there... actually, I am there but a new problem has cropped up.
...

Not too bad but... I figured the secondary drive should be the D Drive? So I couldn't figure out how to rename the secondary hard drive but I was able to rename the Jaz drive. I gave it the drive letter H: and rebooted... now my configuration looks liek this:


A: Floppy
C: Primary Hard Drive
D: ???? - It list a non-existant removable drive...
E: Secondary Hard Drive
F: CD Drive
G: CD Rewritable
H: Jaz Drive

Any idea how I can get the Secondary Drive to be the D: drive and why there is a non-existent removable drive occupying D?

Uninstall the Jaz Drive and reinstall it.

The phantom removeable drive is there because Windows has assigned a drive in that position and then added the new drive to the list. It's there to keep the drive letter from changing and upsetting programs that are looking there for data/programs.

In other words, it's there because Windows (AKA MS programmers) think you're too stupid to know how you want your computer configured.


Once you remove the Jaz drive, windows will readjust it's device list to fill in the gaps -- if it doesn't, then remove both the Jaz drive and the new drive and reinstall them in the order youwant them to showup.

 

[Dillinger]

WH - THANK YOU!!!

We should do lunch! *grin*

 

[Dillinger]

OK... its all done. Drive is formatted. Drive letters are all the way I want them.

Thank you all for helping.

*SMILE*

 

[Weird Harold]

OK... its all done. Drive is formatted. Drive letters are all the way I want them.

Thank you all for helping.

*SMILE*

You're Welcome!

I just know that if curses worked, you'd have crippled Bill Gates's sex life "unto the last generation." I know I've had the urge to go programmer hunting a time or two when dealing with Windows' ideas about the way things should be.

 

[The Wolfs Cry]

sorry i wasnt back sooner to help, glad everythings okay now. was up to my pits in water and sewer lines for a campground. i would have much preferred computer problems!!!!!

Wolf