Can't assign drive letter to second drive with FAT32 1

[goombawaho]

Here is the picture of my problem in MS Word format:

http://home.comcast.net/~deadmilkmen/problem.doc

I put in a hard drive from an old PC and told someone I would get their data off (it's probably Windows 98) with a FAT32 partition.

XP Home does NOT assign a drive letter to it. There are no options in Disk Management except to delete the partition. I've tried it with the partition being active and not active (changed by booting to a Windows 98 floppy). Nothing I do can give me a drive letter to browse the disk in Explorer.

XP is supposed to be able to read FAT32 so something else is going on here. It's an old Maxtor 20GB drive if that matters.

 

[vacunita]

XP can read FAT32 with no problems. so it would seem it may have a problem. What options do you get if you right click on it on the lower part of Disk Manager?. Anything at all?

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[wahnula]

Do you have a live Linux CD like Knoppix available? It might be worth a look. Any chance this disk had GoBack installed?

Just for yuks, have you tried booting to the drive?

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[Prydonian]

Always being one to point out the obvious, but seeing as how an old 20GB Maxtor has to be an IDE drive, is it jumpered correctly for use in your PC? If it is jumpered as a Master and you put it on a controller that already has connected, say, a DVD also jumpered as Master, you will get exactly the behavior you're describing.

Mike, The IT Guy


If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a veteran!

 

[G0AOZ]

Or to follow Tony's idea, if you don't want to try booting from it, boot the computer with Win98 floppy disk and see if you can access the C: drive.

It could be the partition table has got scrambled. Chkdsk might do it, but my preferred choice is to use GetDatBack and pull off what I need/what it finds. G-D-B makes no changes to the drive, so you can have another bite at the cherry if it doesn't work...

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[edfair]

First and obvious question is whether you can see all of the directory structure with your 98 boot disk?

The drive should have come out of the old machine as master and you may be trying it on a cable that is picky about drive selection.

Normally, I pull the opticals off the secondary and plug the questionalble drive there with the cable it originally used to get around drive select issues. Requires the CMOS to be changed temporarily so secondary master is auto.

 

[goombawaho]

No options other than Delete Partition

GoBack MAY have been installed - don't know. It was a Gateway PC, so it's possible.

Can't boot to the drive - only have the hard drive and not the PC it came from.

Jumpering is fine - it's seen as a slave to the 80GB IDE Master hard drive on the primary IDE. The CD-ROMS are on the secondary.

Cannot see any data on C: by booting from the Windows 98 floppy. The partition shows in FDISK as being there and being FAT32.

 

[goombawaho]

The GetDataBack free download won't allow me to actually recover the data, just view it - IS THAT CORRECT?

I don't want to get all excited about retrieving my friend's data for free and then tell him it will cost $69.

 

[G0AOZ]

Yes, that's correct. The trial version of G-D-B will only allow you to check if data CAN be recovered. If the trial version shows it, then you can be pretty sure the full version will do the business for you. I'm sure there are some free recovery programmes out there, but I've only had experience (good) using G-D-B.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[Freestone]

XP command line utility DISKPART may reveal something.

Open a command prompt (Start, Run..., cmd) then enter: diskpart you should receive some program info and a prompt DISKPART>

Since the drive in question is the 2nd drive in the system enter: select disk 1 you should receive feedback saying Disk 1 is now the selected disk

Enter list disk what info do you receive back?

Enter list partition Are any partitions listed?

If so, for each partition listed enter:

select partition n (where n is a partition number from the list partition command) you should receive feedback saying Partition n is now the selected partition.
enter detail partition of special interest will be the Type and Hidden details.

Diskpart commands are detailed here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Perhaps its ASSIGN command can help?

Post any results here if you wish. A partition type of 44 indicates a GoBack partition.

 

[goombawaho]

It was a GoBack partition. Now I just need to find out if the person wants to spend the money on G-D-B. Thanks to Freestone for pointing the path to a certain identification of the problem.

 

[wahnula]

It was a GoBack partition

Ah yes...the Type 44 partition scourge. Glad you got it figured out.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[goombawaho]

You would have gotten a star Wahnula, but you didn't mention how to determine what type of partition it was.

 

[Freestone]

You can try reinstalling GoBack on the PC or configure the drive as Primary Master and follow these directions, which assumes the drive is still bootable:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330140/en-us

 

[Freestone]

Also see micker377's post 8 Aug 06 0:59 in thread751-1261568 for another possible GoBack removal path.

 

[wahnula]

You would have gotten a star Wahnula, but you didn't mention how to determine what type of partition it was.

That's OK...being right is its own reward

We're not in it for the stars...just to help others whenever possible.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[goombawaho]

Actually, Symantec had their own "fix" for this, but it didn't work for me. Something about not being able to find a file. I probably screwed up the partition when messing around with it in FDISK. Not a huge deal.

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/goback.nsf/docid/2001092611363307

Let's call this one closed. Thanks to all.