Drive D: skipped, other letter used in stead.

I got a curious problem that puzzles me.

I have a PI 200MHz system with the following drive setup (2 drives and DVD's
with the standard IDE controller, 4 drives via a Promise ata100 TX2):
- c: 2.5 GB standard IDE primary master
- d: 1.5 GB standard IDE primary slave
- e: 7 GB Promise IDE primary master
- f: 12.5 GB Promise IDE primary slave
- g: 80 GB Promise IDE secondary master
- h: 3 GB Promise IDE secondary slave
- i: DVD Rom standard IDE secondary master
- j: DVD RW standard IDE secondary slave

This works well with Win98 SE.

Now I wanted to replace the 1.5GB d: drive with the 3GB I currently have as
h: drive. Strange things happened: the d: disk was shown in Win98, however
without a disk connected (size is 0) and the 3 GB disk was shown as drive e:
.... So I disconnected all drives from the Promise card and now the 3GB drive
shows as drive d: ... Reconnecting the drives to the Promise card and again
d: was skipped but still shown in the list... I then replaced the original
1.5GB drive as primary slave and all was fine again...

The only thing I can imagine is that some drive information is stored by the
Promise card, however, without any additional drives connected to the Promise
card (still installed in the system) the 3 GB drive is correctly recognized
as d: so this is contradictionary.

Since I still want to replcae the 1.5GB drive (I use it for My Documents) I
was wondering if anyone knows the cause of this problem?

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm that BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...
I got a curious problem that puzzles me.

I have a PI 200MHz system with the following drive setup (2 drives and
DVD's
with the standard IDE controller, 4 drives via a Promise ata100 TX2):
- c: 2.5 GB standard IDE primary master
- d: 1.5 GB standard IDE primary slave
- e: 7 GB Promise IDE primary master
- f: 12.5 GB Promise IDE primary slave
- g: 80 GB Promise IDE secondary master
- h: 3 GB Promise IDE secondary slave
- i: DVD Rom standard IDE secondary master
- j: DVD RW standard IDE secondary slave

This works well with Win98 SE.

Now I wanted to replace the 1.5GB d: drive with the 3GB I currently have
as
h: drive. Strange things happened: the d: disk was shown in Win98, however
without a disk connected (size is 0) and the 3 GB disk was shown as drive
e:
... So I disconnected all drives from the Promise card and now the 3GB
drive
shows as drive d: ... Reconnecting the drives to the Promise card and
again
d: was skipped but still shown in the list... I then replaced the original
1.5GB drive as primary slave and all was fine again...

The only thing I can imagine is that some drive information is stored by
the
Promise card, however, without any additional drives connected to the
Promise
card (still installed in the system) the 3 GB drive is correctly
recognized
as d: so this is contradictionary.

Since I still want to replcae the 1.5GB drive (I use it for My Documents)
I
was wondering if anyone knows the cause of this problem?

As a matter of fact, I had to access the BIOS set up to correct the drive's
settings (I do not have the auto detect switched on). The BIOS did detect the
drive with the correct size and settings.
But then again, without any drives connected to the Promise controller, the
drive was assigned letter D ... whereas with disks connected to the Promise
controller it skipped the D letter, but still the drive was accessible whilst
connected to the primary slave! (I personnally think that part of the problem
is inside Win98 rather than in the hardware)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm that BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...

"RobH" wrote in message
...
As a matter of fact, I had to access the BIOS set up to correct the
drive's
settings (I do not have the auto detect switched on)

Why not?

.. The BIOS did detect the
drive with the correct size and settings.
But then again, without any drives connected to the Promise controller,
the
drive was assigned letter D ... whereas with disks connected to the
Promise
controller it skipped the D letter, but still the drive was accessible
whilst
connected to the primary slave! (I personnally think that part of the
problem
is inside Win98 rather than in the hardware)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm that
BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...

Quite simple: if you have fixed harddisks on the IDE controller, an
autodetect will slow down the startup process a bit. Since normally I don't
swap disks I do not need this autodetect. Still, I have it on for both the
DVD Rom and DVD RW.

Still, I don't think that this is the root cause of the fact that windows
does not assign drive D: to an existing disk...

"SFB - KB3MM" wrote:


"RobH" wrote in message
...
As a matter of fact, I had to access the BIOS set up to correct the
drive's
settings (I do not have the auto detect switched on)

Why not?

.. The BIOS did detect the
drive with the correct size and settings.
But then again, without any drives connected to the Promise controller,
the
drive was assigned letter D ... whereas with disks connected to the
Promise
controller it skipped the D letter, but still the drive was accessible
whilst
connected to the primary slave! (I personnally think that part of the
problem
is inside Win98 rather than in the hardware)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm that
BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...

OK - but when the drive wasn't installed, did BIOS properly record no drive
for that IDE connection?

Whether or not the Promise drive stores info about its connections is a
question you will need to take up with Promise, but I can't think of any
reason why anyone would build this feature into an IDE controller.

You can clear out any information Windows might be holding about drive
letters etc by booting to safe mode and deleting all the devices in Device
Manager.

Also, use FDISK /Status to confirm the exact partitioning of each drive. It
is possible that there are hidden or dummy partitions on the drives which
are detected differently between the different controllers, and which are
confusing the DOS drive detection procedure.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...
As a matter of fact, I had to access the BIOS set up to correct the
drive's
settings (I do not have the auto detect switched on). The BIOS did detect
the
drive with the correct size and settings.
But then again, without any drives connected to the Promise controller,
the
drive was assigned letter D ... whereas with disks connected to the
Promise
controller it skipped the D letter, but still the drive was accessible
whilst
connected to the primary slave! (I personnally think that part of the
problem
is inside Win98 rather than in the hardware)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm that
BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...

Well, I hink that you are missing some of the info I gave:

With no drives connected to the Promise I had:

c: 2.5GB, Standard Primary Master
d: 3GB, Standard Primary Slave
e: DVD RW, Standard Secondary Master
f: DVD Rom, Standard Secondary Slave

When I reconnected 2 drives to the Promise I got:

c: 2.5GB, Standard Primary Master
d: 0
e: 3GB, Standard Primary Slave
f: 80GB, Promise Primary Master
g: 12.5GB, Promise Primary Slave
h: DVD RW, Standard Secondary Master
i: DVD Rom, Standard Secondary Slave

So, with the same disk connected in the same way and no additional changes,
the letter d: was skipped in exactly the same set-up. And my question is why
this letter is skipped, what may cause this phenomenon.

(When you got confused in my original setup the RW was on the Master and not
on the slave as I istakely wrote in my original posting, but that does not
change anything)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

OK - but when the drive wasn't installed, did BIOS properly record no drive
for that IDE connection?

Whether or not the Promise drive stores info about its connections is a
question you will need to take up with Promise, but I can't think of any
reason why anyone would build this feature into an IDE controller.

You can clear out any information Windows might be holding about drive
letters etc by booting to safe mode and deleting all the devices in Device
Manager.

Also, use FDISK /Status to confirm the exact partitioning of each drive. It
is possible that there are hidden or dummy partitions on the drives which
are detected differently between the different controllers, and which are
confusing the DOS drive detection procedure.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...
As a matter of fact, I had to access the BIOS set up to correct the
drive's
settings (I do not have the auto detect switched on). The BIOS did detect
the
drive with the correct size and settings.
But then again, without any drives connected to the Promise controller,
the
drive was assigned letter D ... whereas with disks connected to the
Promise
controller it skipped the D letter, but still the drive was accessible
whilst
connected to the primary slave! (I personnally think that part of the
problem
is inside Win98 rather than in the hardware)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm that
BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...

Second reply: I never started the computer without a disk on the slave of the
Primary IDE Controller, so as far as the BIOS was concerned it was a full
house (both Primary and Secondary IDE controller had two devices, a master
and a slave).

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

OK - but when the drive wasn't installed, did BIOS properly record no drive
for that IDE connection?

Whether or not the Promise drive stores info about its connections is a
question you will need to take up with Promise, but I can't think of any
reason why anyone would build this feature into an IDE controller.

You can clear out any information Windows might be holding about drive
letters etc by booting to safe mode and deleting all the devices in Device
Manager.

Also, use FDISK /Status to confirm the exact partitioning of each drive. It
is possible that there are hidden or dummy partitions on the drives which
are detected differently between the different controllers, and which are
confusing the DOS drive detection procedure.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...
As a matter of fact, I had to access the BIOS set up to correct the
drive's
settings (I do not have the auto detect switched on). The BIOS did detect
the
drive with the correct size and settings.
But then again, without any drives connected to the Promise controller,
the
drive was assigned letter D ... whereas with disks connected to the
Promise
controller it skipped the D letter, but still the drive was accessible
whilst
connected to the primary slave! (I personnally think that part of the
problem
is inside Win98 rather than in the hardware)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm that
BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...

This does not make Jeff's reply about partitions any less valid. Since
"drive" lettering in windows about hard drives is enumerating partitions on
those hard drives, they may not always be the same in some other
configuration. Unless you locate and divulge any and all partitions, no
answer can be valid to your question.

An add-on ide card simply translates the HD CHS for the operating system.
There is no hidden information. Moving a HD from an add-on ide controller
to an onboard ide controller may result in a slightly different CHS
translation. This can result in all kinds of things that one may not expect
including what you're seeing now.
"RobH" wrote in message
...
Well, I hink that you are missing some of the info I gave:

With no drives connected to the Promise I had:

c: 2.5GB, Standard Primary Master
d: 3GB, Standard Primary Slave
e: DVD RW, Standard Secondary Master
f: DVD Rom, Standard Secondary Slave

When I reconnected 2 drives to the Promise I got:

c: 2.5GB, Standard Primary Master
d: 0
e: 3GB, Standard Primary Slave
f: 80GB, Promise Primary Master
g: 12.5GB, Promise Primary Slave
h: DVD RW, Standard Secondary Master
i: DVD Rom, Standard Secondary Slave

So, with the same disk connected in the same way and no additional
changes,
the letter d: was skipped in exactly the same set-up. And my question is
why
this letter is skipped, what may cause this phenomenon.

(When you got confused in my original setup the RW was on the Master and
not
on the slave as I istakely wrote in my original posting, but that does not
change anything)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

OK - but when the drive wasn't installed, did BIOS properly record no
drive
for that IDE connection?

Whether or not the Promise drive stores info about its connections is a
question you will need to take up with Promise, but I can't think of any
reason why anyone would build this feature into an IDE controller.

You can clear out any information Windows might be holding about drive
letters etc by booting to safe mode and deleting all the devices in
Device
Manager.

Also, use FDISK /Status to confirm the exact partitioning of each drive.
It
is possible that there are hidden or dummy partitions on the drives
which
are detected differently between the different controllers, and which
are
confusing the DOS drive detection procedure.
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...
As a matter of fact, I had to access the BIOS set up to correct the
drive's
settings (I do not have the auto detect switched on). The BIOS did
detect
the
drive with the correct size and settings.
But then again, without any drives connected to the Promise
controller,
the
drive was assigned letter D ... whereas with disks connected to the
Promise
controller it skipped the D letter, but still the drive was accessible
whilst
connected to the primary slave! (I personnally think that part of the
problem
is inside Win98 rather than in the hardware)

"Jeff Richards" wrote:

When you removed the drive, did you access BIOS setup and confirm
that
BIOS
no longer saw a drive installed?
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"RobH" wrote in message
...

No disrespect to you or Jeff, I am glad for any help that leads me to the
solution of this puzzle.

When I first installed the disks I had them cleared and completely formatted
to make sure that they were clean, also I am 100% certain that all the drives
only have a single (primary) partition, since I created them myself using
fdisk. So there are no hidden partitions as far as I am able to detect on any
level.

But even when there was a hidden partition, this does not explain the
different detection with or without additional drives on the Promise as I
explained. Remember, I did not change anything regarding the 3GB disk after
connecting it to the Primary Slave, I simply removed all other disks from the
Promise controller and later on reconnected two of them.

"Lil' Dave" wrote:

This does not make Jeff's reply about partitions any less valid. Since
"drive" lettering in windows about hard drives is enumerating partitions on
those hard drives, they may not always be the same in some other
configuration. Unless you locate and divulge any and all partitions, no
answer can be valid to your question.

An add-on ide card simply translates the HD CHS for the operating system.
There is no hidden information. Moving a HD from an add-on ide controller
to an onboard ide controller may result in a slightly different CHS
translation. This can result in all kinds of things that one may not expect
including what you're seeing now.
"RobH" wrote in message
...