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#1
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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. __________________________________________________ __________ |
#3
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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
Mike M said in :
Sorry to get back after a few days but it's been a lot of work to recover my system. Rather than using BootMagic have a look at BootItNG (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/). One rather nice feature is that it can be installed onto its own micro partition - basically the otherwise unused part of the first cylinder. The advantage of this being that you aren't then tied to having BootMagic installed on one of your system partitions. I wouldn't be without PartitionMagic. It includes BootMagic. I would have to spend another $35 to get Bootit NG. If I need to to multiboot then there will be a FAT32 partition available to install BootMagic since the only time I need to multiboot is between a 95-based version of Windows, like Windows ME, and an NT-based version of Windows, like Windows XP. If I ever have need of multiple NT-based Windows installed, like Windows 2000 and Windows XP, but without any instances of 95-based Windows, a minimally sized DOS partition for BootMagic would work. Returning to your problem. In all honesty I don't know why you are seeing this zero byte drive D: but the clue has to be that the Device Manager is reporting just the single drive and assigning it as D: rather than the expected C:. What happens if you boot into Safe Mode delete the hard drive and all controllers and anything else connected to the controllers. On rebooting back into Normal Mode where the devices will be redetected do you still see the same drive letter assignments? Turns out it was a partition recovery that didn't quite work right. I had saved the MBR (sector 0) in preparation to installing Windows ME since I knew Windows ME would screw up the MBR (see http://support.microsoft.com/?id=293089). However, I think that only occurs if you use Microsoft's dual-boot in which you install Windows 9x/ME into the same partition as where is the boot sector for Windows 2000/XP. I created a new primary partition for Windows ME and would use BootMagic to swap between Windows XP and Windows ME. I had to steal away 10GB from the primary partition for Windows XP to make room for a primary partition for Windows ME. I completed the install of Windows ME but figured it would replace the bootstrap code in the MBR, so I restored the MBR. That was my mistake! I had saved a copy of the MBR before I had resized the primary partition to make room for another one. I forgot to also save a copy of the MBR *after* I had resized and created a new partition. So my restore of the MBR included the prior copy of the partition table which obviously didn't include changes made for the resize and new partition. DOH! To recover, I resized the primary partition and recreated the 2nd primary partition just like before. Windows ME booted just fine. This should work because deleting a partition does nothing to erase the sectors used by that partition - except I forgot the boot sector gets wiped. Why Windows ME would start with a corrupted boot sector seems strange indeed but it did start and work okay. The partition type was correct ([hidden] FAT32) but way too many of its values were screwy. I used PTEDIT (on the PartitionMagic rescue diskettes) and PTEDIT32 (included in the hard drive install of PartitionMagic) to look at the partition table. That looked okay. It has an option to let you review the values in the boot sector for each primary partition. The Windows XP partition looked okay. However, the boot sector for the Windows ME partition had some really odd values, like eight double-dotted "o" characters (has 2 dots above the "o") for the partition OEM name, a garbled mess for the volume ID, 256 copies of the FAT (when there are only 2), and lots of other values that didn't make sense. This was why the zero-byte D: drive was showing up. This is why running DiskImage 2002 from a bootable floppy on this partition ended up with a zero-sized image. This is why AIDA32 reported this partition as unformatted although Windows ME was booting and applications would run. I couldn't use DriveImage 2002 to save a disk image. It would save a zero-sized image which was useless. I created a disaster recovery tape backup using Backup Exec (from Veritas who sold it to Stomp and is now called Backup MyPC) but it is an old version 4 which apparently has version 1.0 of their DR (disaster recovery) wizard which screws up in creating the bootable floppies but the tape backup was okay - sort of. I deleted the partition, recreated it, and this time formatted it as FAT32 before using it to ensure the partition table was accurate and to get a valid boot sector. I then did a basic install of Windows ME, installed the backup software, and tried to do a restore from the backup tape. After 3 hours, it had restored only 363 files out of over 14,000 of them. At that rate, it would take 5 days to do the restore. Why it was so slow is unknown other than it appeared to be looking for a file at a time and making the tape move all over to find the file rather than just restore them in whatever order they appeared on the tape. It only takes an full evening to install Windows ME, all applications and games, do the updates, and tweak it. If I had remembered to do an MBR backup *after* resizing the primary partition and creating another one, none of this work would've been needed. Also, it appears I could've just used the Windows XP install CD to use Repair to go into Recovery Console mode to use FIXMBR to restore the bootstrap program in the MBR after installing Windows ME. Windows 9x/ME screws up the boot sector for Windows NT/2000/XP but only if you use Microsoft's dual-boot where you install both within the same partition. |
#4
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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
*Vanguard* wrote:
Windows 9x/ME screws up the boot sector for Windows NT/2000/XP but only if you use Microsoft's dual-boot where you install both within the same partition. I was under the impression (and have found from past experience) that any type of Windows installation stomps all over the MBR. Rick |
#5
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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
"Rick T" wrote in message ... *Vanguard* wrote: Windows 9x/ME screws up the boot sector for Windows NT/2000/XP but only if you use Microsoft's dual-boot where you install both within the same partition. I was under the impression (and have found from past experience) that any type of Windows installation stomps all over the MBR. I retro-fitted MS-DOS 7.10 to XP (by doing SYS C: with a 98se boot disk) without having to touch the MBR. Shortly after that, I installed ME to XP by running Setup, also without needing to touch the MBR afterwards. Of course, I already had Boot Magic handling it. IOW, with BM (or other) as boot manager you can retrofit 9x to the XP partition easily. Shane |
#6
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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
Rick T said in :
*Vanguard* wrote: Windows 9x/ME screws up the boot sector for Windows NT/2000/XP but only if you use Microsoft's dual-boot where you install both within the same partition. I was under the impression (and have found from past experience) that any type of Windows installation stomps all over the MBR. Rick Another Windows installation *within* the SAME partition will stomp on the boot sector for THAT partition. The bootstrap program is fairly standardized (for Microsoft) and doesn't do much other than to check which partition is marked active in the partition table, get the starting sector for that active partition from its entry in the partition table, and load the boot sector from that active partition to start loading the operating system in that partition. I actually saw that because the partition got created, deleted, and recreated but now it appeared to be unformatted but the install of Windows ME still did write its own bootstrap program into the boot sector of that separate primary partition to get Windows ME to load okay. If Windows ME had been installed in the same partition as Windows XP (which is why I won't use Microsoft's dual-boot) then its install would step on the boot sector that used to hold the bootstrap program for Windows XP. With Windows 9x/ME and Windows NT/2000/XP vying to overwrite the boot sector if installed in the same partition, you end up with a partition boot sector that is not usable for both, but the MBR is still okay. You can use FIXMBR from Windows XP or "FDISK /MBR" from Windows 98 and still get the same bootstrap program (or near equivalent) loaded in the first 460 bytes of sector 0 (MBR). I had saved and attempted a restore of the MBR because I wanted exactly the same bootstrap code that Windows XP might have put there rather than an equivalent but maybe slightly differently coded version from Windows ME. My mistake was restoring the MBR from a copy made *before* I did the partition resize and new partition creation so I put back the old partition table (i.e., the one prior to the partition changes). So Powerquest's mbrutild program is not what I really want. It backs up and restores the entire MBR (sector 0) and, optionally, also track 0 (since some boot managers will extend into the unused portion of track 0). I still want to do the MBR backups but I'd also like the ability to restore *just* the bootstrap code portion of the MBR (i.e., the first 460 bytes of the saved MBR over the first 460 bytes of sector 0). MBRwork (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html) won't do it as it will only install a "standard" bootstrap program, not the one included in your MBR backup. I can do that with the Windows XP install CD, select Repair (to get the Recovery Console), and run FIXMBR, or use a Windows 98/ME bootable floppy and run "FDISK /MBR". I suppose I could use a hex editor to merge the 460 bytes for the bootstrap program from the original MBR backup to replace the first 460 bytes of an MBR backup performed later (so the partition table would be current in the edited MBR backup file) and then use that edited MBR backup file to restore the original bootstrap code (along with overwriting the same partition table atop of itself) but that is way too much work and very error prone. MBRtool (at http://snipurl.com/6imf) might do it but their description of the /RBC parameter is vague ("refresh", to me, is not the same as "restore"). The documentation for MBRwizard (http://mbrwizard.securityorg.net/) is just a bunch of FAQs rather than real documentation on how to use the utility and you cannot download the program to see if its help files are any better at explaining what it can do without first wasting $25 to buy the unknown utility. For as critical as the MBR is to the health and configuration of your system, and considering that it has several distinct parts (bytes) for various functions (and the same within the partition table), the tools to manage the MBR are very crappy. Just one more step backwards in usability would put me back to flipping paddle switches on an old Altair (http://snipurl.com/70iv) to enter the boot program. -- __________________________________________________ __________ *** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others. *** Email domain = ".com" *AND* append "=NEWS=" to Subject. __________________________________________________ __________ |
#7
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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
It can be confusing which boot[strap] program is being talked about.
There are 2 of these: the MBR bootstrap program (in sector 0 of the disk), and the partition boot program (in the first sector of the partition). There's the "hardware" bootstrap program in the first 460 bytes of sector 0 of the first physically scanned hard disk that the BIOS will load into memory and start its execution. This is the loader program in the MBR (Master Boot Record) used by the BIOS to "bootstrap" the system. Its job (for the standard bootstrap program) is to read the partition table to see which partition is marked as active and where that partition starts, then load the OS boot program in the first sector of that partition. There's the "OS" boot program in the first sector of the partition in which the OS resides. This is the one that actually starts loading the operating system. If you install multiple operating systems in parallel within the same partition, each will write its loader program into the "boot sector" of THAT partition. They do not (or should not) write into the 460-byte bootstrap area of the MBR (unless the bootstrap program is missing). To keep the various DOS/Windows products from stepping on each other's loader program in the partition's boot sector, I install them into separate partitions. The MBR restore was an optional step that I could have and should have avoided. |
#8
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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
I just remembered trying to dual-boot Linux and W95 (and maybe ME at
some point) and having to either do Linux second, or save/restore the MBR, 'cuz Windows overwrote LILO (which AFAIK is in the MBR not the partition portion). *Vanguard* wrote: It can be confusing which boot[strap] program is being talked about. There are 2 of these: the MBR bootstrap program (in sector 0 of the disk), and the partition boot program (in the first sector of the partition). There's the "hardware" bootstrap program in the first 460 bytes of sector 0 of the first physically scanned hard disk that the BIOS will load into memory and start its execution. This is the loader program in the MBR (Master Boot Record) used by the BIOS to "bootstrap" the system. Its job (for the standard bootstrap program) is to read the partition table to see which partition is marked as active and where that partition starts, then load the OS boot program in the first sector of that partition. There's the "OS" boot program in the first sector of the partition in which the OS resides. This is the one that actually starts loading the operating system. If you install multiple operating systems in parallel within the same partition, each will write its loader program into the "boot sector" of THAT partition. They do not (or should not) write into the 460-byte bootstrap area of the MBR (unless the bootstrap program is missing). To keep the various DOS/Windows products from stepping on each other's loader program in the partition's boot sector, I install them into separate partitions. The MBR restore was an optional step that I could have and should have avoided. |
#9
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Zero-byte D: drive should not show, C: missing from Device Manager
Rick T said in :
I just remembered trying to dual-boot Linux and W95 (and maybe ME at some point) and having to either do Linux second, or save/restore the MBR, 'cuz Windows overwrote LILO (which AFAIK is in the MBR not the partition portion). My brain cells that were retaining memories of Windows 95 have died off or so few remain that there remain no coherent experience to recall what it did on an install. Of course, I have been known to be wrong. The KB articles at http://support.microsoft.com/?id=126671 and http://support.microsoft.com/?id=69013 make it appear the Windows setup does overwrite the bootstrap code in the MBR. Microsoft probably won't trust anyone but Microsoft for the bootstrap program. But is also looks like LILO is a boot manager that doesn't necessarily have to usurp the MBR in order to work and could leave the standard bootstrap program in place and have it load the boot program in the boot sector for the partition in which Linux was installed to run LILO. I'm not familiar with setup of Linux. Yet there are other articles to backup my statement that the MBR bootstrap doesn't get overwritten if one already exists. For example, see http://www.geocities.com/thestarman3..._in_detail.htm (under the link describing the Windows 2000/XP MBR). So it may be that 95-based versions of Windows are rude in overwriting the MBR bootstrap program but NT-based versions of Windows are not. However, this article talks about the Disk Management Console in Windows XP not overwriting an existing bootstrap program but really doesn't mention what happens on installing Windows XP. So I'm still confused on this issue. -- __________________________________________________ __________ *** Post replies to newsgroup. Share with others. *** Email domain = ".com" *AND* append "=NEWS=" to Subject. __________________________________________________ __________ |
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