Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Rictor on December 03, 2004, 11:10:55 pm
-
I'm installing a second hard-drive. I have it set up as a slave, and BIOS recognizes it as such during start-up. However, Windows dudn't see jack squat. I'm probably forgetting something really obvious, but I can't for the life of me figure out what.
Help.
-
Format?
-
I don't have a bootable floppy + fdisk.
-
You should (I think) be able to fdisk from the C drive to do the D drive, with it being a seperate physical drive and all.
-
I had this prob too. A freash windows install will bring it up. :nod:
-
You tried playing with the Device Manager thing and Add Hardware?
-
Yeah, I have, and the auto-detect craps out at the end, while for some odd reason they don't have Western Digital in the manual select list.
Also, fdisk only shows a single drive, which is kind of off given that I see both a master and a slave during startup.
raa: I don't have Windows handy, and besides I'm not interested in installing anything....hmm, the Win98 CD probably has fdisk, that might work.
-
Try putting it on the other IDE channel.
-
phsically impossible, given the space between my cdrom and my hardrives.
I'll try formatting with the windows cd. Wish me luck gentelmen.
-
get your hands on a win98 boot disk... it has Fdisk on it, the second HD quite possibly needs partitioning. format usually follows that..
or any other partitioning software should do.
-
NO!
Do NOT re-install windows. That is by far the STUPIDEST suggestion ever. If you're running NT/2000/XP, then just do the following. It will make your day alot brighter, and save yourself hours of program re-installations.
Start -> Control Panel -> Administrator Tools -> Computer Management
Click on "Disk Management" and locate your new hard drive in the list. Check to see if there is a partition listed on the drive. If not, simply create one, format it, and then restart windows.
If you're running Win9x, simply use the software provided by Western Digital (also downloadable from their website) and all will be well.
I swear people, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't bother even posting a suggestion.
-
Blow me.
-
Vertigo: thanks, but I'm on 98.
OK, its formatting, but the maximum partition size it 10gigs, for an 80 gig hard-drive. :wtf: :wtf:
Its enough for now, I'll do it properly tommorow by the light of day.
-
Originally posted by Rictor
Vertigo: thanks, but I'm on 98.
OK, its formatting, but the maximum partition size it 10gigs, for an 80 gig hard-drive. :wtf: :wtf:
Its enough for now, I'll do it properly tommorow by the light of day.
How old is the system you plugged it into? Your motherboard may need a bios update. You can get around it for now with a dynamic overlay, but thats not exactly the most favorable option.
HOWEVER, as I suggested in my previous post, download (http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&swid=1) the latest release of Western Digital's "Data Lifeguard Utillities" and use it to partition and format your hard drive. If that recognizes your 80 gig drive like its supposed to, then ignore the suggestion about a bios update for your motherboard.
Anon: Oh do grow up. I do this **** for a living, and it irritates the **** out of me when morons give rediculously bad advice. As if "reinstalling windows" is the solution to every damn problem that arises. :rolleyes:
-
Tell that to my super for whom I just spent 4 hours "fixing the computer" culminating in the reinstallation of Windows (OEM mind, so it was just a ghost image) to get rid of a tiny error. Kind of behind on the rent, so I only thought it fair.
-
Originally posted by Rictor
Tell that to my super for whom I just spent 4 hours "fixing the computer" culminating in the reinstallation of Windows (OEM mind, so it was just a ghost image) to get rid of a tiny error. Kind of behind on the rent, so I only thought it fair.
$5 says that "tiny error" was an adware/malware infestation b0rking up windows.
Hell, I just recently cleaned out a Dell for a friend of mine and found 997 pieces of adware, some of which was causing Explorer to crash randomly. Once I cleaned that out, all was well. She was a very happy camper. :)
-
mycomputer->right_click->manage->format
oh, wait, you'r not running XP,
if it's still giveing you the 10 gig thing, what file format are you useing?
-
Try to figure this one out
Every time the computer restarts, a message shows up saying file something.dll is missing from the windows/system 32 folder. However, this filename is always different (each time you restart) and none of them can be found by Googling, not even a single match. Maybe its randomly generated?
Also, the time the file was created, accessed and modified is all within 30 seconds of a reboot.
In the end, it was just too much bother, and since there was nothing really too irreplaceable on the comp...
-
SUCCESS!!
And the drive now has 74 gigs free space on it...hmmm...I distinctly remember something around 10 gigs as being the only partition (I have no idea what file system, I was just running through it as quick as possible).
Next step: reinstall KOTOR and download prOn.
-
Originally posted by Rictor
Try to figure this one out
Every time the computer restarts, a message shows up saying file something.dll is missing from the windows/system 32 folder. However, this filename is always different (each time you restart) and none of them can be found by Googling, not even a single match. Maybe its randomly generated?
Also, the time the file was created, accessed and modified is all within 30 seconds of a reboot.
In the end, it was just too much bother, and since there was nothing really too irreplaceable on the comp...
You know, that happened to my brother's computer a while back. I scanned it with both AdAware SE and Spybot Search & Destroy and found a few malware installs. I removed them, and replaced the missing DLL file from one of the windows CAB files and all was well.
Anywho, I'm going to bed. I'm running on about 3 hours of sleep, so if you have any questions Rictor, bug me on ICQ sometime tomorrow. (UIN should be in my profile)
-
Originally posted by Rictor
SUCCESS!!
And the drive now has 74 gigs free space on it...hmmm...I distinctly remember something around 10 gigs as being the only partition (I have no idea what file system, I was just running through it as quick as possible).
Well, he said it's 9x so it has to FAT32.
The size difference is a marketing ploy. The manufacturers count a kilobyte as 1000 bytes, not the proper 1024 bytes. By the time you get up to "80" gigs you only actually have 70-something.
-
okhay simple way out if you have XP
control panel > administrative tools > computer managment > storage >disk managment
it should show up there and you can format from there :)
-
Ashrak, his problem is solved, and your suggestion has been made at least twice so far. ;)
-
I just plug stuff in and it works....
Never had a system failure or HD problem in 14 years.
-
Originally posted by Vertigo1
Anon: Oh do grow up. I do this **** for a living, and it irritates the **** out of me when morons give rediculously bad advice. As if "reinstalling windows" is the solution to every damn problem that arises. :rolleyes:
Originally posted by an0n
Blow Me.
-
No, I'm with Vert on this one. Reinstalling is the lazy way out.
It was something that pissed me off to no end when I was working in Vancouver.
Computer is ****ed. Format!
But... all it needs is Ad-aware and NAV run on it.
Nope! Format!
Lazy ****ing techs get trained to diagnose and fix this ****, yet all they seem to be able to do is format.
-
He may be right, but I don't care. :p
-
Originally posted by Ashrak
okhay simple way out if you have XP
control panel > administrative tools > computer managment > storage >disk managment
it should show up there and you can format from there :)
Originally posted by Rictor
SUCCESS!!
And the drive now has 74 gigs free space on it...hmmm...I distinctly remember something around 10 gigs as being the only partition (I have no idea what file system, I was just running through it as quick as possible).
Next step: reinstall KOTOR and download prOn.
The next time you decide to post in a thread, try reading the entire thread. That way, you won't look like a retard when you post.
Raa: I know I'm right for one simple fact. His problem was that he didn't partition and format the hard drive in question. This has NOTHING to do with windows at all. If you had half the clue you think you do, you would've picked up on this and responded accordingly. Its not my fault that you're too damn lazy to properly diagnose a very simple problem that would've taken any self-respecting tech maybe 2 minutes to fix.
-
Originally posted by Thorn
Lazy ****ing techs get trained to diagnose and fix this ****, yet all they seem to be able to do is format.
that's not true. it's only people who don't know what they're talking about that are always saying "FORMAT" because formatting will fix any software conflicts or errors, but it's the lazy, stupid way of doing it. any good tech will fix the problem, and only format as a last resort.
EDIT: then again, maybe it's just us ego-obsessed 1337-A0L LOL H4)(0R!!s that don't always tell people to format :blah:
-
Originally posted by Vertigo1
Raa: I know I'm right for one simple fact. His problem was that he didn't partition and format the hard drive in question. This has NOTHING to do with windows at all. If you had half the clue you think you do, you would've picked up on this and responded accordingly. Its not my fault that you're too damn lazy to properly diagnose a very simple problem that would've taken any self-respecting tech maybe 2 minutes to fix.
I'm not a tech. I never claimed to be. I just poited out what worked for me. So either **** me or get off my back.
[edit] Seems the filters have been disabled? :wtf: *manually filters out his swearing*
-
I think the phrase "Don't fix what isn't broke" applies here. If Windows works, formatting is probably not a good idea unless you're going to install a new version (or Linux :p). There's always the possibility of an "Oh ****! All my e-mails, bookmarks, and passwords were in the profiles folder!" moment.
-
Originally posted by WMCoolmon
"Oh ****! All my e-mails, bookmarks, and passwords were in the profiles folder!"
Exactly. This is something these guys never thought about. And they wondered why the customers were always pissed off at them.