Can't see partitions on an external drive.

From: Paul Zin
, October 31, 2004
(No similar response was found regarding
formatting/partitioning an external drive with ME.)

To: Microsoft newsgroups, windows ME hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/newsgroups/?pr=6321

Topic: Can't see partitions on an external drive.

QUESTION: Windows ME can only show the directory of the
1st partition on a Maxtor Fire Wire drive and can't see the
other 2 partitions. Is there any way to get it to recognize
all 3 partitions? Do I re-partition with FDISK or use
Partition Magic 8, or something else, or is the problem
unfixable?

THE DETAILS: Partition 1 is 50 GB, #2 is 50 GB, and #3 is
100 GB; which is visible with Partition Magic 8, and
Maxtor's MaxBlast3win.exe which created the partitions.
The Windows ME directory calls the 1st partition:
DISK4_VOL2 (E but doesn't recognize any partitions F or
G; nor volumes 3 or 4; nor DISK5, etc.

Fdisk does see the three FAT32 partitions E, F & G, however
as: 5 GB, 5 GB, & 10 GB; 1/10 the actual size. But then
Fdisk in another display does show the logical drives F & H
as: 50 GB and 100 GB which may make much better sense;
while drive E the 1st 50 GB partition does actually somehow
get recognized by Windows; where it does function OK. So
how could Windows ME work with the last 2 partitions, since
all the information is actually in the operating system?

(Naturally I imagine we will eventually all have to switch
to Linux to keep our computers going at all. Why would
paid programmers make Windows into a nightmare for its
users trying to accomplish fairly trivial tasks?)

Thanks for any suggestions or references.