Disk Management in Windows XP

[JohnD]

I have fitted an extra IDE drive. Windows has detected and installed it and claims it is ready to use. It is visible in Device Manager, but not in Windows Explorer, or if I try to save to it. there are only two IDE drives connected; I have unplugged the DVD drives. I have restarted the PC

Troubleshooter is unable to help.

Long ago on a different machine, I used Disk Manager to force Windows to assign a drive letter, but the disk shows here as "not initialised". When i right-click and ask it to initialise, or rescan disks, nothing happens.

 

[AlanE]

Have you set the jumpers correctly such as master/slave?

 

[JohnD]

yes, I checked the "C" drive is set to Master, and the extra disk is set to "slave", and I have put the new disk at the end of the ribbon cable, with the C drive in the middle.

the extra disk is an old C, but I erased and formatted it a few days ago.

Incidentally, in the last few minutes I found a "partition" command on disk manager that works, and am running that (single partition of full disk capacity)

 

[JohnD]

...that seems to have done the trick. I have now been able to rename it, and copied a test file onto it.

I am now going to try the same with my other spare disk.

 

[JohnD]

all done now. I have re-lettered the drives, and copied a sample file to them as test.

OOI, I was using removable disk caddies (drawers) because I had intended to use the disks for removable backup. It seems incredible, but the evidence suggests that the extra connections, or cable, or integral fans, were degrading the signal. When I put the disks straight into the case, they worked, but when I put them back in the caddies, they didn't. I was using the same IDE cable both times.

when in caddies, BIOS saw the disks, but the disk make/model ids held corrupted characters.

 

[Blagard]

<snipped>all done now. I have re-lettered the drives, and copied a sample file to them as test.

Just remember the drive letters are not on the disks themselves, they are allocated at boot up, only the volume names will remain constant.

 

[Monkeh]

It seems incredible, but the evidence suggests that the extra connections, or cable, or integral fans, were degrading the signal.

Why does that seem incredible?

 

[JohnD]

what's the point of a disk caddy that stops the disk from working?

 

[Monkeh]

what's the point of a disk caddy that stops the disk from working?

There isn't one. That doesn't make extra cable or bad connections affecting things incredible.

 

[AlanE]

Are these caddies internal or external? If the latter then how long is the cable as IDE cables have a maximum length of around 18 inches and if the connections are not 100% probably an effective length much less.

 

[JohnD]

the usual ribbon cables go into the back of the receptacle, and the receptacle has a socket which the drawer fits into. The drawer has a couple of inches inside before the socket which the drive plugs into. The receptacle has a ground wire on one of its fixing screws where you fix it into the PC case.

I have now parcelled them up with some other stuff to donate to a local voluntary group which does classes in PC build, perhaps they will do better than me.

 

[foxhole]

the usual ribbon cables go into the back of the receptacle, and the receptacle has a socket which the drawer fits into. The drawer has a couple of inches inside before the socket which the drive plugs into. The receptacle has a ground wire on one of its fixing screws where you fix it into the PC case.

I have now parcelled them up with some other stuff to donate to a local voluntary group which does classes in PC build, perhaps they will do better than me.

Was it a cheap ext caddy from china, they are sh!te and the power supply's dangerous.

 

[JohnD]

internal, it goes in a 5.5" slot

power comes from an internal 4-pin 12v IDE connector

I have been successfully using them for years, and moved one to a different case while I was rebuilding it as a gift.

Anyway, it's gone now.