trying to slave a hard drive w/out formatting
 

Hello, all,
I was using my mother's computer because mine blew the motherboard/pcu chip.
Because of errors that developed on her hard drive, I installed mine as
master and hers as slave. I did this because I want access to files and
programs on hers, most importantly a driver file that I need for the PCI
video adapter. BIOS finds it, as does system's hardware manager.
Unfortunately, I am unable to assign a drive letter to it. Is there a way I
can do this without formatting the slave drive?
Thank You,
Scott

What filing system is in use on your mother's hard drive? If NTFS as used
by Win2K and XP then Win Me will not be able to access the partition
without the use of third party drivers.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



cowboy6665 wrote:

Hello, all,
I was using my mother's computer because mine blew the
motherboard/pcu chip. Because of errors that developed on her hard
drive, I installed mine as master and hers as slave. I did this
because I want access to files and programs on hers, most importantly
a driver file that I need for the PCI video adapter. BIOS finds it,
as does system's hardware manager. Unfortunately, I am unable to
assign a drive letter to it. Is there a way I can do this without
formatting the slave drive?
Thank You,
Scott

Sorry, should have mentioned that both drives are using WinME.

"Mike M" wrote:

What filing system is in use on your mother's hard drive? If NTFS as used
by Win2K and XP then Win Me will not be able to access the partition
without the use of third party drivers.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



cowboy6665 wrote:

Hello, all,
I was using my mother's computer because mine blew the
motherboard/pcu chip. Because of errors that developed on her hard
drive, I installed mine as master and hers as slave. I did this
because I want access to files and programs on hers, most importantly
a driver file that I need for the PCI video adapter. BIOS finds it,
as does system's hardware manager. Unfortunately, I am unable to
assign a drive letter to it. Is there a way I can do this without
formatting the slave drive?
Thank You,
Scott

only thing that comes to mind if you actually didn't mix up the select
jumpers somehow (ie: 2 masters or 1 master and 1 cs) is maybe your HD
has some fixed drive-letter assignments or a maximum drive-letter
assignment.

Try it in Safe Mode or boot from a WinME Emergency Bootdisk (or one that
can read FAT32 anyways).


Rick


cowboy6665 wrote:
Sorry, should have mentioned that both drives are using WinME.

"Mike M" wrote:


What filing system is in use on your mother's hard drive? If NTFS as used
by Win2K and XP then Win Me will not be able to access the partition
without the use of third party drivers.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



cowboy6665 wrote:


Hello, all,
I was using my mother's computer because mine blew the
motherboard/pcu chip. Because of errors that developed on her hard
drive, I installed mine as master and hers as slave. I did this
because I want access to files and programs on hers, most importantly
a driver file that I need for the PCI video adapter. BIOS finds it,
as does system's hardware manager. Unfortunately, I am unable to
assign a drive letter to it. Is there a way I can do this without
formatting the slave drive?
Thank You,
Scott

Fair comment Rick, however hidden in cowboy's first post :-

... Because of errors that developed on her hard
drive,

Mmm.. puts a slightly different complexion on things ??

I would suggest a few more tests, like can it be seen in Real Mode DOS using
the WinMe Startup (floppy) Disk (EBD), as you already alluded in you reply
and a scandisk surface test(with all the data safeguard warnings),

The disk may already be sufficiently 'damaged' that it can't be seen in its
present state.

Mart


"Rick T" wrote in message
...
only thing that comes to mind if you actually didn't mix up the select
jumpers somehow (ie: 2 masters or 1 master and 1 cs) is maybe your HD has
some fixed drive-letter assignments or a maximum drive-letter assignment.

Try it in Safe Mode or boot from a WinME Emergency Bootdisk (or one that
can read FAT32 anyways).


Rick


cowboy6665 wrote:
Sorry, should have mentioned that both drives are using WinME.

"Mike M" wrote:


What filing system is in use on your mother's hard drive? If NTFS as
used by Win2K and XP then Win Me will not be able to access the partition
without the use of third party drivers.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



cowboy6665 wrote:


Hello, all,
I was using my mother's computer because mine blew the
motherboard/pcu chip. Because of errors that developed on her hard
drive, I installed mine as master and hers as slave. I did this
because I want access to files and programs on hers, most importantly
a driver file that I need for the PCI video adapter. BIOS finds it,
as does system's hardware manager. Unfortunately, I am unable to
assign a drive letter to it. Is there a way I can do this without
formatting the slave drive?
Thank You,
Scott

Well it doesn't help that the OS is configured for a different system.
So I'd suggest anything done in Windows to be done in Safe Mode.

Rick


Mart wrote:
Fair comment Rick, however hidden in cowboy's first post :-


... Because of errors that developed on her hard
drive,


Mmm.. puts a slightly different complexion on things ??

I would suggest a few more tests, like can it be seen in Real Mode DOS using
the WinMe Startup (floppy) Disk (EBD), as you already alluded in you reply
and a scandisk surface test(with all the data safeguard warnings),

The disk may already be sufficiently 'damaged' that it can't be seen in its
present state.

Mart


"Rick T" wrote in message
...

only thing that comes to mind if you actually didn't mix up the select
jumpers somehow (ie: 2 masters or 1 master and 1 cs) is maybe your HD has
some fixed drive-letter assignments or a maximum drive-letter assignment.

Try it in Safe Mode or boot from a WinME Emergency Bootdisk (or one that
can read FAT32 anyways).


Rick


cowboy6665 wrote:

Sorry, should have mentioned that both drives are using WinME.

"Mike M" wrote:



What filing system is in use on your mother's hard drive? If NTFS as
used by Win2K and XP then Win Me will not be able to access the partition
without the use of third party drivers.
--
Mike Maltby MS-MVP



cowboy6665 wrote:



Hello, all,
I was using my mother's computer because mine blew the
motherboard/pcu chip. Because of errors that developed on her hard
drive, I installed mine as master and hers as slave. I did this
because I want access to files and programs on hers, most importantly
a driver file that I need for the PCI video adapter. BIOS finds it,
as does system's hardware manager. Unfortunately, I am unable to
assign a drive letter to it. Is there a way I can do this without
formatting the slave drive?
Thank You,
Scott