G
glee
Guest
Re: Assigning a Drive letter to External USB connected Hard Drive
"Frog" <frog@pond.com> wrote in message
news:OUOgYu2AIHA.1208@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
<snipping for clarity>
> Bill,
> Moving the hard drive from the Secondary Slave position to the Primary Master
> position worked. First, here is what I observed on my first attempt last night
> against the "good" hard drive:
>
> Selected Drive (only drive observed)
> Model: WDC WD1200BB-23RDA0
> S/N: WD-WCANN1268205
> Firmware: 20.00K20
> C H S: 232581 16 63
> Capacity: 120 G
> Drive: 0 Port: 0X1F0
> Log File: DLGDIAG.LOG
>
> Quick "Test Completed Without Errors
> Error/Status Code: 0000
>
> Now here is what I observed this morning after placing the "bad" hard drive in the
> Primary Master position:
>
> Selected Drive (only drive observed)
> Model: WDC WD1200JB-00RDA0
> S/N: WD-WMANN1467578
> Firmware: 20.00K20
> C H S: 232581 16 63
> Capacity: 120 G
> Drive: 0 Port: 0X1F0
> Log File: DLGDIAG.LOG
>
> Quick "Test Completed Without Errors
> Error/Status Code: 0000
>
> Extended "Test Completed Without Errors
> Error/Status Code: 0000
>
> I think it is clear that I did test both hard drives based on the two
> different S/Ns.
>
> I'm not sure what comes next, but I do have a pocket full of thoughts and
> questions. For example:
>
> The Secondary Slave position was where a CD device once lived. After considerable
> help from this group--this device was thought to be faulty. Thus, it was removed
> from the system. Now, I attempted to access the "bad" 120GB hard drive from this
> same Secondary Slave position and this also had problems. Could the problem be
> other than the device plugged into the Secondary Slave connector--i.e., cable,
> motherboard problem/setting, BIOS, etc.? I know that it was originally connected
> to the system via USB port--and that originally worked before the meltdown
> occurred--not after the meltdown occurred. I now have my mouse plugged into a USB
> port and it appears to be working just fine.
>
> NOTE: The Secondary Master is connected to a Plextor CD player and it works
> normally. Also, the hard drive, while connected to the Secondary Slave connector,
> was recognized in some ways--appeared in the BIOS, Device Manager, and the
> Registry. It, for unknown reasons to me, was not assigned a Drive letter when it
> was installed on the system.
It's possible there is a problem with the cable, specifically with the connector you
used on the cable for the hard drive and before that for the Samsung CD-ROM.
However, the partinfo you gave Bill earlier still indicates a problem with at least
the way the drive is set up....the partition tables etc.
For now, I would suggest you leave the "bad" drive as the Primary Master and follow
the suggestions below:
If you have a Win98SE CD, take it and a blank floppy disk to any working computer
and insert them both, cancel setup if it starts, then browse the CD using Windows
Explorer or My Computer, to the \tools\mtsutil\fat32ebd folder, double-click the
file named "fat32ebd.exe", and follow the prompts to create a boot disk.
When done, copy the file partinfo.exe that Bill had you download earlier, to the
boot floppy. (Find the partinfo.exe file, right-click it and click Send To> 3-1/2"
Floppy A.
Now take the boot diskette and use the it to boot your problem computer, then at the
A: prompt, type the following and press Enter:
partinfo.exe > partinfo.txt
Wait for it, as it will write the partinfo.txt to the boot floppy disk. When the
floppy light goes off and it is done, you can take the floppy to your working
computer and copy/paste the partinfo.txt file into a reply here.
PS: Also, while you still have the boot floppy in the problem computer and booted
with it (before you remove it), it might help also to run the following command and
WRITE DOWN what it reports, to post here also:
fdisk /status
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
"Frog" <frog@pond.com> wrote in message
news:OUOgYu2AIHA.1208@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
<snipping for clarity>
> Bill,
> Moving the hard drive from the Secondary Slave position to the Primary Master
> position worked. First, here is what I observed on my first attempt last night
> against the "good" hard drive:
>
> Selected Drive (only drive observed)
> Model: WDC WD1200BB-23RDA0
> S/N: WD-WCANN1268205
> Firmware: 20.00K20
> C H S: 232581 16 63
> Capacity: 120 G
> Drive: 0 Port: 0X1F0
> Log File: DLGDIAG.LOG
>
> Quick "Test Completed Without Errors
> Error/Status Code: 0000
>
> Now here is what I observed this morning after placing the "bad" hard drive in the
> Primary Master position:
>
> Selected Drive (only drive observed)
> Model: WDC WD1200JB-00RDA0
> S/N: WD-WMANN1467578
> Firmware: 20.00K20
> C H S: 232581 16 63
> Capacity: 120 G
> Drive: 0 Port: 0X1F0
> Log File: DLGDIAG.LOG
>
> Quick "Test Completed Without Errors
> Error/Status Code: 0000
>
> Extended "Test Completed Without Errors
> Error/Status Code: 0000
>
> I think it is clear that I did test both hard drives based on the two
> different S/Ns.
>
> I'm not sure what comes next, but I do have a pocket full of thoughts and
> questions. For example:
>
> The Secondary Slave position was where a CD device once lived. After considerable
> help from this group--this device was thought to be faulty. Thus, it was removed
> from the system. Now, I attempted to access the "bad" 120GB hard drive from this
> same Secondary Slave position and this also had problems. Could the problem be
> other than the device plugged into the Secondary Slave connector--i.e., cable,
> motherboard problem/setting, BIOS, etc.? I know that it was originally connected
> to the system via USB port--and that originally worked before the meltdown
> occurred--not after the meltdown occurred. I now have my mouse plugged into a USB
> port and it appears to be working just fine.
>
> NOTE: The Secondary Master is connected to a Plextor CD player and it works
> normally. Also, the hard drive, while connected to the Secondary Slave connector,
> was recognized in some ways--appeared in the BIOS, Device Manager, and the
> Registry. It, for unknown reasons to me, was not assigned a Drive letter when it
> was installed on the system.
It's possible there is a problem with the cable, specifically with the connector you
used on the cable for the hard drive and before that for the Samsung CD-ROM.
However, the partinfo you gave Bill earlier still indicates a problem with at least
the way the drive is set up....the partition tables etc.
For now, I would suggest you leave the "bad" drive as the Primary Master and follow
the suggestions below:
If you have a Win98SE CD, take it and a blank floppy disk to any working computer
and insert them both, cancel setup if it starts, then browse the CD using Windows
Explorer or My Computer, to the \tools\mtsutil\fat32ebd folder, double-click the
file named "fat32ebd.exe", and follow the prompts to create a boot disk.
When done, copy the file partinfo.exe that Bill had you download earlier, to the
boot floppy. (Find the partinfo.exe file, right-click it and click Send To> 3-1/2"
Floppy A.
Now take the boot diskette and use the it to boot your problem computer, then at the
A: prompt, type the following and press Enter:
partinfo.exe > partinfo.txt
Wait for it, as it will write the partinfo.txt to the boot floppy disk. When the
floppy light goes off and it is done, you can take the floppy to your working
computer and copy/paste the partinfo.txt file into a reply here.
PS: Also, while you still have the boot floppy in the problem computer and booted
with it (before you remove it), it might help also to run the following command and
WRITE DOWN what it reports, to post here also:
fdisk /status
--
Glen Ventura, MS MVP Shell/User, A+
http://dts-l.org/
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm