cmos

[Murphy]

:confused:
I have a p166 with 80 mg of memory. Running windows ME. AMIBIOS 1995
I have a 30 gb secondary hard drive at D:
My computer crashed several weeks ago and I had to reformat the C drive. When I ran FDISK I noticed the partitions were non-dos. So I decided to delete the drive and reformat. The C drive was partitioned into two drives, one of which I assumed was the tag for the slave.
Hoping to protect the slave drive I disconnected the slave drive from the computer, deleted the two non -dos drives (C and E) rebooted. It took a while for the PC to reboot. I re-installed my operating system, rebooted. Then I re-connected the slave drive to the computer but ME does not SEE it. The cmos settings for the second drive are blank and the bios refuses to allow me to re-enter the values for the drive. Since the bios is old it does not support large drives and the values have to be entered manually at the USER location. I have all my data and programs on the slave.
I hope I have made this clear and that someone out there can bail me out.
Murphy

[Inka]

Win ME on non DOS partitions? ext2 is the only one I can think of thats relevant!

Anyway that irrelevant. The main drive being partitioned into 2 drives is nothing to do with the slave drive. did you notice the sizes of them by the way? However you mentioned they were drive letters C & E so you probably had those drive letters in the PC prior to doing these changes?

The bios should have an autodetect function to find new hard drives. 30gig isnt excessively large even for older systems. If that doesnt find them then check the connections (data & power) as that most likely where the problem is.

Once the drives are both detected in the bios, windows should sort itself out.

Just another thought.. did you change any of the jumper settings on the hard drives?

[Murphy]

Thank you Inka. I used the AUTO detect in the bios as you suggested. it saw the slave but doesn't see the correct size. It identifies the slave as the same size as the primary (2014 mb) rather than 30 GB. I am afraid to access the drive in this configuration. I still can not enter values under the USER rubric.
Any suggestions?

[mjc]

Sounds like a BIOS issue with not seeing the larger drive.

[saphalline]

From what I know of these "large hard drive with old system" problems, you have two choices. You can get a PCI IDE controller card that supports large hard drive sizes (80-137GB), or you can try out the HDD manufacturer's overlay software.

The controller card would cost money and you would have to check the compatibility with your system, but if it works it would be the best option for a slave drive. The overlay software should be a free download that runs off a floppy, but while it's fairly reliable there are no guarantees.

[Paleo Pete]

Sounds like when you repartitioned the C drive you also removed disk overlay software that "fooled" BIOS into thinking it was seeing a smaller drive than it is.

Depending on which options you used when starting it you may have not enabled "Large disk support" (FAT32) so it could be seeing FAT32 partitions as non-DOS. I think fdisk will also create non-dos partitions if you try to, by changing from the efault options when partitioning.

The best bet would be to try the drive overlay software (EZ-Drive etc) from the drive manufacturer's website. I'm not positive but I think that will probably wipe out all data on the drive. The Enhanced IDE controller card saphalline mentioned would be an even better idea, but they are not cheap and probably difficult to find these days. That's why I think you'll have a better chance of success with the drive overlay software.

[Inka]

After searching on ebay for a pci ide controller card there are quite a few being offered. All under $10. Might be the easiest option?

Good luck!

[Sylvander]

I'm no expert, but:

I'd guess your mistake was to partition with the 2nd physical drive removed.

Aren't FAT's CHAINED from one drive to the next?
So the 2nd drive is referred to in the first?

[Murphy]

Thanks every-one. I will look over all your proposed sullutions and get back to you (all).

[Paul Komski]

Aren't FAT's CHAINED from one drive to the next?

The FATs (or the MFTs for that matter) are unique for each partition/volume - and not linked. The only normal "daisy-chaining" in this regard is (a) the way that individual large files are referenced within the FATs and (b) the way that logical partitions reference themselves, since their parameters are not stored in the MBR's partition tables.

If disks are spanned or striped and so on - then the virtual volumes, so formed, (from a hardware RAID or from dynamic disks created in Win2K/XP) have tables which obviously physically span disks/partitions but they remain unique for that logical volume none-the-less.

Agree with PP that if no longer seen in the BIOS setup it has nowt to do with the structures on the drive and either the disk went bad when "manhandled" or that drive overlay was removed.

[Sylvander]

Here's what I was thinking of [which I take it doesn't apply].

QUOTE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Master Partition Table: This small table contains the descriptions of the partitions that are contained on the hard disk
A hard disk can have only four true partitions, also called primary partitions. Any additional partitions are logical partitions that are linked to one of the primary partitions.
One of the partitions is marked as active, indicating that it is the one that the computer should use for booting up
One of the four primary partitions may be designated as an extended DOS partition. This partition may then be subdivided into multiple logical partitions. This is the way that two or more logical DOS volumes can be placed on a single hard disk.
Within the extended DOS partition, the logical drives are stored in a linked structure. The extended partition's information is contained in the master partition table (since the extended partition is one of the four partitions stored in the master boot record). It contains a link to an extended partition table that describes the first logical partition for the disk. That table contains information about that first logical partition, and a link to the next extended partition table, which describes the second logical partition on the disk, and so on. The extended partition tables are linked in a chain starting from the master partition table.
DOS assigns drive letters (C:, D: etc.) differently to primary and logical volumes.
Each partition [or “logical DOS volume”] has its own volume boot record [or sector]. This is distinct from the master boot record [MBR] that controls the entire disk, but is similar in concept. Each volume boot record contains the following:
 Disk Parameter Block: Also sometimes called the media parameter block, this is a data table that contains specific information about the volume, such as its specifications (size, number of sectors it contains, etc.), label name, and number of sectors per cluster used on the partition.
 Volume Boot Code: This is code that is specific to the operating system that is using this volume and is used to start the load of the operating system. This code is called by the master boot code that is stored in the master boot record, but only for the primary partition that is set as active. For other partitions, this code sits unused.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Go to
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/struct.htm
then Master Boot Record (MBR)

[Murphy]

Thank you all. Every little bit helps toward a solution.

[Paul Komski]

[which I take it doesn't apply]
Correct. There is a difference between how partitions are indexed/mapped and how the files within them are referenced.

The partitions are like libraries and one needs a map (the mbr's partition tables) to find them. Only one of them can be an extended partition and you have to travel to it to find out where its branch libraries (the logical partitions) are pysically located. Having got there one finds out that there is no map of all logical partitions (the branch libraries) and you have to go to the first one before there is a reference to the next one and so on. That's the daisy-chaining related to logical partitions.

Each partition has within it a fat or mft table (a file indexing system) that references all the files held in that partition and only in that partition. That library's card index does not reference any books held in other libraries.

When scandisk or chkdsk are run they always work on one partition at a time as they go round tidying up the references to the files contained within it.

[Sylvander]

So is there any link at all between separate physical Hdd's?

I notice that a lot of people have problems of this kind and I got the impression [perhaps wrongly] that there was some kind of linkage.

I notice that Murphy has his 2nd physical drive set up with a primary partition marked as active just like mine.
This is indicated, I believe, by the fact it has been allocated the drive letter D.
In the past I noticed that when I tried to mark mine as non-active it was allocated the letter E [which I don't want because it would create difficulties with restoring existing backups (they would be restored to the wrong drives)].

[Paul Komski]

MSDOS and DOS-based Windows assign drive letters to up to eight fixed HDDs in dynamic fashion.

The physical fixed hdds are first scanned for primary partitions and the first visible primary partition (active or not) on EACH HDD is given one sequential letter starting with C.

The same physical drives are then scanned for logical partitions and the lettering sequence is continued.

There is then a third scan of these HDDs looking for further primary partitions other than the first primary partition.

Hidden or NTFS partitions and their ilk (that are not seen by dos-based systems) are ignored in this sequencing.

Only one primary partition on EACH HDD may be marked as active. This active partition indicates to the boot processes, which partition contains the boot partition and, naturally, its partition boot sector.

Marking such partitions active will normally hide any other primary partitions on that hdd.

It is more likely that the drive letters changed in an unpredictable way due to hiding/unhiding rather than a primary partition being, per se, active or not.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=51978 loks a bit complicated though it is not exhaustive - none-the-less.

"Dummy drives" in config sys and earlier oem versions of dos distros can complicate things further - though the above is a pretty accurate way of describing what happens in Win95/98/ME.

[Inka]

Thats very interesting Paul, thanks!
I never knew how it worked out the lettering. Info stored away now :)

[Paul Komski]

The simple "trick" to remember (if one is using Win9X/ME) is that if you add a physical HDD and you dont want this to change the drive letters of the partition(s) already in existence on the main hdd - then:-
either make them all logical partitions
or if you create any primary partitions because you wish to install an operating system - and from which you wish to boot from - then either hide it until you need to access it or use a format, such as NTFS, which Win9X/ME will not see.

With Win2K/XP you can add new partitions without affecting the current drive letters - because such assignments are remembered both in the registry and are also "hard encoded" onto the hdd itself.

[Sylvander]

QUESTIONS
1. How do you make all the partitions on a physical HDD to be logical partitions? Doesn't there need to be a primary partition and an extended partition to that, within which you make logical partitions?
2. How do you "hide" a primary partition?

[mjc]

Both can be done by using nonMS partitioning tools......and yes you should need the extended partition to put the logicals in...

[Paul Komski]

Technically, an extended partition is a primary partition because it is one of the four primary partitions that can be referenced directly from the partition tables in the mbr.

In other senses it is unlike all other primary partitons, since it cannot contain an OS or be made "active". Other than being a container for logical partitions and referencing the area of the HDD, that its scope covers, it occupies only enough space to hold the EBR and it contains no data and no file tables.

Murphy, as far as we know, has not solved his problem. If there are specific problems with entering the drive's CHS values in the bios setup or in installing a HDD controller card - do let us know.

[Murphy]

Yes, that is the ongoing dilemna. I can not enter the HDD manufacturers suggested values in the bios at USER. It does, as I mentioned before, recognize the HDD if I select AUTO in the bios.(but at the wrong size) Should I select:

Auto configuration with optimal settings, or
Auto configuration with fail safe settings
and hope that that bios corrects its' error.

But, I am learning a lot from you folks. Thank you.
M