Hard Disk not Formatted?

[w2rus]

Hi

I have a Windows XP Pro SP2 computer c/w removable hard disk bay.

If I install a hard disk from say a windows 2000 computer to copy some data over to my xp computer, or even to clone the drive, I always get the "Disk Drive not Formatted, Do you wish to format now?" error when trying to explore the drive

If I put the disk back into the original machine, then all the data is accesable.

The drive is ntfs formatted

I have also noticed this after using sysprep on a windows 2003 server drive

Anyone else come across this

Thanks in advanced

W2rus

 

[stduc]

What format is the imported disk using? FAT or NTFS? What format is your boot drive using? Did you mount the drive?

 

[trojanman]

After installing the win2k drive, you might have to initialize it with Disk Mgmt in Admin Tools.

 

[stduc]

I thought initialising a disk was the last thing you wanted to do if you wanted to keep the data on the disk? I could be wrong of course.

 

[w2rus]

Thanks for all your replys

The imported disk is NTFS

The windows XP disk is NTFS

Windows displays the drive under My Computer with a drive letter, but gives the not formatted error when trying to access, so I assume it must be mounted

Dont seem to be able to do any thing under disk management due to errors about partition type errors.

The drive I am currently trying to access was formatted using ntfs from the installation media, so no specail software used to partition format the drive

Hope this answers all questions

Thanks in advance for futher advice

W2rus

 

[stduc]

This disk is not part of a RAID or JBDOD array is it? If not, then the only thing I can think to do is to put it back in the original system & run chkdsk on it in case there is some form of corruption on the disk.

 

[w2rus]

Thanks for the reply stduc

No, the drive was not part of an array

This has occured more than once, sometimes with disks from other xp pro machine

The disk always work in the original machine with no problems reported

The only thing I can think of is that the boot disk on my machine is SATA and the imported disks are ATA

Could this possibly be an issue?

I never have an issue with external drives connected via usb


Thanks

W2rus

 

[stduc]

How are you connecting these disks? IDE cable? As Master on the cable?

I'm wondering if this is a driver issue? What driver is XP reporting for these devices?

 

[linney]

Some long shots here?

Is the Removable Storage Service Started and set to Manual?

What if anything is showing up in the Event Viewer?

How to troubleshoot error messages about Event ID 9 and Event ID 11

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314093/en-us?FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Have a look at Group Policy.

Load and unload device drivers.

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\User Rights Assignment

Allowed to format and eject removable media.

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options

 

[stduc]

Is this drive recognised correctly in the BIOS?

 

[w2rus]

Hi,

thanks for all your reply's

The drive is recognised correctly in Bios at startup

I have tried connecting as secondary on the primary ide channel, and also primary / secondary on the secondary channel, after removing CD drive(s)

The drive connects via ide using a removable drive caddie system

XP is not reporting any issues regarding the primary or secondary ide channels, I have tried updating drivers but no updated drives found. I will try Gigabytes website later to check to see if anything is available there

I will check the status of the RSM and report back later

Thanks for all replys / help so far

W2rus

 

[trojanman]

What does Disk Management report about the drive?

 

[bcastner]

You should set up removable media drives so that they are the last drives on your system. Drives are assigned priorities as follows: primary master, primary slave, secondary master, secondary slave. You should not have a fixed hard drive set up as the secondary master if you have a removable media drive set up as the primary slave.

Give this a trial, SwapMaster:

http://www.softhelp.cc/mc/Homex.html

 

[stduc]

What do you mean by priorities?

 

[bcastner]

stduc,
This:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q825668

Best,
Bill Castner

 

[stduc]

Ah right - that's what you meant. Does that PnP rule apply after the initial install of the O/S though. I didn't think it did. Once the O/S is built on C as C that's it isn't it? Or are you saying if you move it from say master on IDE0 to slave on IDE1 it will change drive letter on re-booting? (assuming you have 4 drives and re-jumper appropriately?

 

[bcastner]

The devices are enumerated:
. during initial install of XP
. when first added

This is different from Win9x where enumeration occurs on each boot.

Persistence of drive assignments is also how people (often) get their 'clone' of XP messed up when they add a new drive and 'move' the system to it. They (often) first add the drive in and boot the system, partition and format it, which causes XP to identify the drive/partition and assign a letter. Then they 'clone' the old drive to the new one, which copies the registry containing the drive assignments. Then, when they remove the old drive and attempt to boot from the 'new', exact copy, it blue screens because the 'new' drive is D:, as it was assigned when they made the formatted partition, and boot cannot find the system partition. It's worse yet if they simply swap drive positions, keeping both drives installed, because it will 'appear' to work but it's still operating off the old drive because is still labeled 'C:' regardless of having physically swapped the drives.

Type MOUNTVOL at a command prompt to see the enumeration table.

 

[w2rus]

Ok

I will try and bring all the info upto date

Drives connected as follows:

Boot disk is SATA connected to SATA 0

IDE 1 Master = DVD ROM
IDE 1 Slave = DVD R/W

IDE 2 Master = HDD
IDE 2 Slave = HDD

The above 2 make a RAID 1 array

IDE 3 master = empty
IDE 3 slave = Removable Hard Disk Tray

I found it strange the manual saying to connect CD drive to IDE 1, else will not work. I tried several ways and the only way to get working is to have CD to IDE 1

When Booting, bios reports

IDE Channel 0 Master = CD
IDE Channel 0 Slave = CD

IDE channel 2 Master = SATA Drive

Primary Master = Array 0
Primary Slave = Array 0

Secondary Master = No Device
Secondary Slave = Hard disk currently installed in tray

So everything is detected

In windows Explorer, the imported drive is Drive Y, reports not formatted is try to open / explore

MOUNTVOL at the cmd prompt returns:

\\?\Volume{7213192b-71a9-11d9-b813-000fea587981}\
G:\

\\?\Volume{f3211900-13e6-11db-9113-000fea587981}\
Y:\

\\?\Volume{7470cae2-71ae-11d9-a90a-806d6172696f}\
C:\

\\?\Volume{446baa00-7717-11d9-a483-000fea587981}\
D:\

\\?\Volume{446baa01-7717-11d9-a483-000fea587981}\
E:\

\\?\Volume{b17f3cc2-71b7-11d9-9274-806d6172696f}\
A:\

The removable storage service is set to manual, but not started

No clues n the event log

Disk management reports is drive is Online - Healthy (Active), but does not report a file system type and shows 100% free. the size is reported correctly

Drivers = File Version 5.1.2600.2180 (xpsp_sp2_rtm04083-2158) from Microsoft Corp

Well, i think that covers everything

Thanks for all your help

w2rus

 

[stduc]

This discussion is beginning to get beyond my ken - but I'm learning a lot - thanks to bcastner.

However - in the meantime & before he/she replies - what effect does starting the removable storage service have (if any)?

Can you make the removable device a master on IDE3?

 

[trojanman]

Internally, sata drives dont use ide connectors... they use sata connectors.