Hard Drive in BIOS and Device Manager but not under "My Computer"

[Fleep]

Hello,

I'm new to all this jazz and I've got a problem. I just built a computer and I put in a 40gig Maxtor Hard Drive. It shows up in the BIOS and under device manager in Windows XP, but I can't get access to it (it doesn't show up as a drive in My Computer). I put in an old hard drive and that's how I have access to Windows XP. It's a brand new hard drive and is not formatted (which is my guess to the problem) but I don't know how to format it (because I can't get access to it). I can't make a boot disk because my 3.5 drive is shot but one is on order so hopefully it'll be here before too long. Is there any way to make Win98 Boot Disk on a CDR or do I have to wait for the new drive? My only other question is.....What's better NTFS or FAT32? I have no idea which is better, if there is even a difference. I don't plan on doing anything super intensive with the computer(games mostly), so does it matter? Any help you can give me on this matter would be great!

Thank you for you time,
Fleep

 

[wolluf]

1. You can partition, format and assign a drive letter to it under disk management in XP (run diskmgmt.msc). It won't appear in My computer till you do this). Note - maximum FAT32 partition size you can create with XP is 32GB, though it will access larger partitions created elsewhere (eg, fdisk).

2. You can make a 'win98 boot floppy' boot CD - but you don't need to now! (I can tell you a method if you want to know).

3. Theres a guide to Fat32/Ntfs here

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=63.

It may or may not help you!

 

[Fleep]

If it's not too much trouble, could you tell me how to make a Win98 Boot CD? I think it'd help me out in the long run and I always seem to lose 3.5 disks.

Thanks,
Fleep

 

[wolluf]

My instructions are for Nero (you can download a working shareware version if you don't use it - or adapt to your burning software). As you haven't got a working floppy at the moment, you can download a win98 boot floppy image file from here

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steve-dunn/win98.img

(you can create such an image using something like floppy image from

http://www.rundegren.com/

from a win98 boot floppy).

Start Nero & choose CD-Rom Boot. On Boot tab click on Image and browse to win98.img (rename to win98.ima or look for all files to find it). Enable expert settings, and choose floppy 1.44 emulation. Then click on the New button. You can add other files to CD. Then burn CD - leave it unfinalised if you want to add more.

This CD will boot exactly as a win98 boot floppy (choose CD support), and you will get an A: prompt. Here you can see all the floppy files & run dos commands.
If you change to the CD drive letter, you can access the additional files you added to the CD (this is as far as I've got trying out making bootable CDs).

 

[Comtech]

Your Windows 98 CD is bootable, no need to make one. Cheers,
Jim

http://members.cnx.net/reboot/

 

[wolluf]

But Comtech, you can't partition a disk booting from a win98 CD - so its not much use if that's what you want to do. Also, he's got XP installed - so doesn't actually need a boot disk at the moment - but he did ask how to make a Win98 disk on a CDR - so that's what I've posted.

 

[Fleep]

Thank you very much for your help wolluf! Now I'm fighting general Windows XP problems, but that's to be expected with most Mcrosoft stuff. Anyway, thanks again for your help!

Fleep