Disappearing partitions

[rsboehner]

Over the last couple days I've been installing my hardware and software for my new computer. I have 3 OS running and I wanted to get WinME running well before I started on the others. Well today I finally was satisfied with how it was running, so I started into the Windows 2000 installs. When I booted up the first time, I went to look for a couple programs I had downloaded into my E: partition and realized that Win2k had assigned one of my CD-roms to E:
No problem I thought, I went and changed the drive letter for the CD-rom and noticed that my F: partition and g: partition had also disappeared in favor of my other cd rom and zip drive. So I changed them as well and rebooted.

When it comes back to Win2k, I go to get those programs again and realize that the cdroms and zip drive letters have changed, but the hard drive partitions that did have those letters under WinME were now completely missing! I did a few things to try to fix it (dont' remember exactly, I know I ended up reinstalling the drivers for my promise Ultra66 card) and rebooted again to find that one of the CD-roms had disappeared completely and the other one as well as the zip drive had reverted back to the E: and F: drive letters. I go change them again, hoping to get the other cdrom back, reboot and now I only have my WinME, Win2k partitions, my H: partition, one cd-rom (cd burner), and my zip drive. I went to the disk manager and tried to add drive letters to the 3 partitions but it says they are not active and to reboot to get them that way. Well I reboot one more time, but I still can't find them. Does anyone know how I can recover those partitions and the missing cdrom?

 

[rsboehner]

^

 

[MC]

did you have your Win2K install on NTFS partition?
If so, i am not positive that you will get access to those FAT32 partition.

Not 100% sure so correct me if i am wrong!

 

[backWERD]

Win2k should have no problems seeing fat32 even if w2k is installed on a ntfs partition. Does your bios see all the devices in your pc on bootup. And does the IDE card have a verbose scan for the IDE drives on boot up. so that you can see all devices. IF your card doesnt detect them on bootup it windows will not see them.

Also check your cables make sure they are all good one IDE bus cable being bad and crosstalking in the cables can cause a lot of freaking things like this. Try replacing them all. If you dont have extra cables try one cable at a time and make sure the bios is initaillizing the drives on boot up.

good luck

 

[rsboehner]

I have both WinME and Win2k installed on Fat16 partitions so that I could access the info on them through Linux. The other partitions are Fat32. Yes, they are all three recognized in the IDE scan at startup (two through the motherboard port scan and the other through the promise port Bios scan thing.

 

[backWERD]

Win2k should have no problems seeing fat32 even if w2k is installed on a ntfs partition. Does your bios see all the devices in your pc on bootup. And does the IDE card have a verbose scan for the IDE drives on boot up. so that you can see all devices. IF your card doesnt detect them on bootup it windows will not see them.

Also check your cables make sure they are all good one IDE bus cable being bad and crosstalking in the cables can cause a lot of freaking things like this. Try replacing them all. If you dont have extra cables try one cable at a time and make sure the bios is initaillizing the drives on boot up.

good luck

 

[backWERD]

what is your Hard drive model and how many partitions are on it and what types

 

[rsboehner]

My hard drive is an IBM Deskstar 46.1 GB. I have partitions set as follows:

Primary: 2gb fat16 Windows ME
Extended:
2gb fat16 Windows 2000 Pro
8.81 gb Linux w/ swap file (200mb) partition
7.78 gb Fat32 (for games is missing)
4.4 gb Fat32 (for music is missing)
9.8 gb Fat32 (for programs is visible)
7.9 gb Fat32 (for miscellaneous is missing)

 

[rsboehner]

Ok, I know there isn't a problem with the cables or detection of the cdrom in BIOS, because I just booted to Windows ME and everything is fine here. All my partitions are visible and accessable as well as my cdroms and zip drive.

 

[rsboehner]

anyone?

 

[backWERD]

thats a hard one


w2k shouldnt be having a problem with this setup.


when win2k setup your cdrom as e drive did you notice your partions were gone then or was it after you moved them that they disapppered

 

[rsboehner]

Well I noticed that the cdroms were actually in the place the partitions should have been, so I just imagined the cdroms as stealing the drive letter. It was almost as if they were being covered by the cdrom, so I guess I didn't notice they were actually "missing" until I changed the letters for the cdroms. They weren't assigned a different letter, so I guess that was when I noticed it.

 

[backWERD]

when a cd rom drive steals a drive letter the partions/harddrives are always assigned a drive letter following given that the drive/partions are seen by the OS. The only thing that it could be it could be that your linux partion could be blocking the OS ability to see thet other partions. Is the linux partion on a FAT partion or a standard linux partion.

Also have you ever used winnt diskmanager. W2k has a utility very similar to that Its in the control panel not quite sure what its called now it's been a few months since ive ran win2k.

 

[backWERD]

Anyways that utility should let you see and manage all partions on every drive in your system while Win2k. If you still can't see the partions in that util but you can in WINME then there is definately a problem with your OS and you need to contact MS on that.