MustGetOutMore

Hi All

This is my first post. So be gentle with me.

I have 4 Windows OSes on 4 different drives.
I use osl2000 multibooter, which presents a menu (after the post and bios have finished but before a windows loader gets called). This menu allows me to select a hard drive and then osl2000 boots up to that hard drive for me. This all works fine.

Now the problem.
I have hdd1 and hdd2 on the IDE1 cable (as marked on the MB).
I have hdd3 and hdd4 on the IDE2 cable (as marked on the MB).

When I boot up using hhd1 (on IDE1) I can see all 4 drives in Windows Explorer. Great.
When I boot up using hdd3 or hdd4 (on IDE2) I can only see hdd3 and hdd4 in Windows Explorer. Not so great.

In the past I was using the built in Windows dual boot method and had the same problem on this machine. In that case I only had two drives and the IDE2 boot would not let me see the IDE1 drive.

Has anyone come across this quirk/problem and know what I am talking about and maybe know how to deal with it? Is it just me?

Many thanks

Deleted090308

Welcome to TSF.

What operating systems are installed? Where (HDD) are they installed?
File systems used?

MustGetOutMore

IDE-1 MASTER C: = WIN 2000 PRO SP4 = NTFS = 72GB DESKSTAR
IDE-1 SLAVE D: = DATA ONLY = NTFS = 30GB SAMSUNG
IDE-2 MASTER E: = WIN XP PRO = NTFS = 40GB MAXTOR
IDE-2 SLAVE F: = WIN 98 UPGRADE EDITION = FAT32 = 31GB FUJITSU

MB=ATHLON XP 1800+ 720MB RAM

BIOS SETTINGS
ALL DRIVES SET TO AUTO DETECT
1ST BOOT DEVICE = FLOPPY
2ND BOOT DEVICE = IDE 0

I earlier booted to IDE-1 Win2000 and all 4 drives are showing in Explorer.
I have just booted to IDE-2 XP. In Windows Explorer I can only see the XP and Win98 drives.
However, still in XP, I have looked in device manager and all 4 drives are listed.

Thanks for looking at the problem.

MustGetOutMore

I just booted into Win98. Only the 98 drive shows in Explorer. Sorry I mislead you on the first post where I said I can see the 98 and XP drive from an IDE-2 Win 98 boot. All four drives show in device manager in Win 98 as well.

Steve

Deleted090308

Windows 98 can't "see" NTFS partitions - so nothing strange there.

But... XP on IDE-2 should be able to see all partitions in "My computer".
Boot that XP installation and have a look in Disk management - are all partitions visible there?

MustGetOutMore

Yes, Disk Management lists all 4 disk drives. They are all online and 'healthy active', and XP is 'healthy system'.

Deleted090308

Good. Try rewriting the partition tables on the IDE-1 drives.
Follow the steps here: http://www.techsupportforum.com/1163140-post1.html
Do that from the XP installation on IDE-2.

MustGetOutMore

Hi Eneles.
Forgive me for being a bit wary and seemingly questioning your good advice. The Win2000 machine on IDE-1 is a crucial developer machine and it takes a couple of days to reinstall everything from a format, so I am nervous of changing any low level stuff on the drive. The Win2000 drive works fine when I boot up to it. So, if it boots up fine can the partition table still be corrupt ? In this next step am I just going to run TestDisk in order to just test and see if there is anything wrong with the partition table ? Sorry to question you, but I can't afford to lose anything just now.

MustGetOutMore

I decided to trust TestDisk. I run it from XP and looked at the drives I am not seeing on IDE-1.
The Data drive (no OS) drive is shown as * hid. HPFS/NTFS in TestDisk.
The Win2000 drive is shown as * hid. HPFS/NTFS in TestDisk

MustGetOutMore

I ran TestDisk and did a WRITE to the partition table, but ONLY on the IDE-1 'Data Only' drive. I'm still too scared to do it on the IDE-1 Win2000 drive. Anyway, after doing that the 'Data Only' drive does not show in a Win XP boot.

Deleted090308

No need to apologize - I'd be hesitant too.
The only thing that'll be altered is the MFT, but on second thought that can't be the problem if everything looks OK in Disk management.

Please post a screenshot of XP's Disk management.

How to post a screenshot.

Have you tried opening the C: and D: drives from a command prompt?

MustGetOutMore

Cannot access the two drives drives via the Command prompt ("The system cannot find the drive specified.").

Attached Images

DiskManagement.JPG (143.6 KB, 9 views)

MustGetOutMore

If this is any help ...
I ran TestDisk via XP (on IDE-2) and the IDE-1 drives I could not see were marked *.hid in the Partition column in TestDisk.
I ran TestDisk via Win2000 (on IDE-1) and the IDE-1 drives do not have the ".hid" marker in the Partition column in TestDisk.

Deleted090308

Try assigning drive letters to drive 0 and 1 (right click in Disk management).

MustGetOutMore

Those options are greyed out in Disk Management.

Deleted090308

Have a look in device manager (enable "Show hidden devices" in the View menu).
Any yellow or red "marks" in device manager?

Under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers >> uninstall the Primary IDE channel.
Reboot and let Windows reinstall the channel.

MustGetOutMore

There are no reds or yellows in Device Manager. I uninstalled the Primary IDE channel and rebooted. I did not get the 'found new hardware' message and went straight into the desktop screen as normal. Primary channel is showing in Device Manager. I looked in Disk Manager and all things are the same.

Deleted090308

Very strange...

Device manager >> Disk drives >> Right click disk 0 (80GB? Deskstar?) >> Properties >> Volumes >> Populate.

Repeat with Disk 1.

BTW - the disk capacities in Disk management aren't the same as the ones you posted in #3.

MustGetOutMore

Apologies for being loose about the hard drive sizes, I just did them off the top of my head. I quickly named the backup drive as 40GB in error a couple of years ago, and have not bothered to change it. Also, Windows, Dos and the Bios all seem to report different sizes.

MustGetOutMore

Oops, the post got chopped.

I'll upload the populated volume sceenshots.