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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
Windows ME
Abit NF7-S v2 motherboard (built-in USB), nForce2 400 chipset Drives: IDE0 master = WD 120GB ATA-133 IDE hard disk IDE1 master = CD-RW/DVD-ROM IDE combo drive Problem: The only drive designator that should get assigned is C: because it is the FAT32 primary partition used to boot Windows ME. Other partitions are formatted as NTFS. There should be no D: drive but it is showing up (as zero bytes in size). I have both Windows XP and Windows ME installed but in separate primary partitions. My hard drive is partitioned as follows: - 1st partition = primary C: using NTFS for Windows XP system drive Hidden to Windows ME (because of NTFS) - 2nd partition = primary C: using FAT32 for Windows ME Hidden to Windows XP (no drive designator assigned) - 3rd partition = extended with logical drive D: using NTFS for Windows XP data drive Hidden to Windows ME (because of NTFS) The 2nd partition is seen by Windows XP but has *not* been assigned a drive letter (it did originally but I used diskmgmt.msc to remove the drive designator from it) since I do not want it accessed when booting up using Windows XP. The Windows ME partition is used for playing games that I just can't get running at all or running well under an NT-based version of Windows. I don't want to use the same partition for both installs and risk one OS polluting the other (as with Microsoft's dual-boot within the same partition), so I have them in separate primary partitions so Windows ME cannot see the other drives (because they are NTFS formatted) and Windows XP [user] cannot see the FAT32 partition for Windows ME because no drive letter is assigned to it (i.e., it is hidden). I was going to use BootMagic (included with PartitionMagic) but it reports that it cannot find its home partition. It requires a non-NTFS partition to install the rest of its bootstrap program so it is on the FAT32 partition with Windows ME. Windows ME boots just fine so I don't know what is BootMagic's problem (and am still waiting for a response from Symantec since they gobbled up Powerquest). If I can't get BootMagic to work, I'll just edit boot.ini to use the dual-boot function of NTLDR from Windows XP to make my OS selection. The problem: When I boot into Windows ME (by making its primary partition the active one), it should NOT be able to see the first primary partition nor the logical drive in the extended partition because both are formatted using NTFS. This was how Windows ME first behaved when it was installed (I had saved the MBR after the partitioning but before installing Windows ME so I could recover the original bootstrap code in the MBR that Windows ME would screw up, and then restored it after the Windows ME install). At first, all I had for hard drives was C: which was the FAT32 partition. However, I kept getting "PCI Universal Serial Bus" device not found and Windows ME wanted me to install a driver for it. After installing Windows ME, I installed the nForce platform driver package (this motherboard uses the nForce2 400 chipset). I thought it would include USB support but found out it does not. So I downloaded the Orangeware USB driver from Abit's web site, installed it (and then reinstalled the nVidia nForce driver package just to be sure nVidia's latest version drivers were getting used) and this nuisancesome "device found" dialog disappeared on bootup of Windows ME. After this is when I got the zero-byte D: drive showing up. In Explorer, I see C: which is the FAT32 partition (second primary partition) used to boot Windows ME. The CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive is assigned J:. In Explorer, I also see a D: drive but it reports no properties and is zero bytes in size. When I look in Device Manager, only one hard drive is listed (which is correct since there is only one physical hard disk) but under its properties it says it is being assigned a D: drive designator (I would think it should say C. When I boot into Windows ME, the FAT32 partition is getting assigned a C: designator. So where is this D: designator getting assigned, and why is it getting assigned? C: is obviously showing up because that's the boot partition for Windows ME (which is loading okay) and shows up in Explorer. But D: is the drive designator shown in Device Manager for the physical hard disk and D: is showing up in Explorer but D: should not appear anywhere when booting under Windows ME. TIA -- __________________________________________________ __________ *** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others. *** Email domain = ".com" *AND* append "=NEWS=" to Subject. __________________________________________________ __________ |
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