Master drive replaced, slave corrupted?

[GLee2]

I had 2 Maxtor drives (not original) on HP Pavilion 7850, a 933MHz machine, a 60GB master and 80GB slave. The 60GB failed, and I replaced it with a WD 80GB. Bios sees both drives fine, and the new master C: drive works fine. Windows did not recognize the slave drive so I installed EZ-bios(from Maxtor - ver 1.00) on the WD 80GB. Still the slave drive comes up as non-DOS! I called Maxtor and they recommend re-installing EZ-bios on the slave drive, is there any way that can do harm? I am not positive that EZ-bios version 1.00 was the version I originally used on the Maxtor drives, but I think so. Also, Maxtor says that the failing C: drive may have corrupted the FAT on the slave. How could that happen? Most of my backups were on one drive to another, figuring both drives would never go at the same time. Fortunately, my most critical I backed up on CD. Thanks.

 

[edfair]

Any time you diddle the bootsector and load DDOs you are at risk of losing the drive.

I don't know if it is still an option with EZ, but if it is you load the overlay on a bootable floppy and see if you get access. That was the way you got access to an overlaid drive in earlier systems.

You haven't mentioned the OS or the partitioning. If it is a late OS and the whole drive is d: you may have lost your ability to see it with other than EZ on the drive, and if the different version doesn't help you may have lost it.

I realize that the capability to use all the disk as one partition is seductive but the problem you are having is the downside.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[GLee2]

The OS is Win ME. Believe it or not I don't know how many partitions I had - I used C: D: and E: on the 2 drives but I don't remember if the master or slave had 2 since use is transparent. I booted up the Maxblast-EZ-bios diskette and looking through I didnt' see an option to use EZ-bios on a boot diskette. But I did see an option to restore track 0. Here's what it said: "Track 0 contains the partition table and boot code. A backup is automatically made for you when you use Maxblast to set up your drive. If your boot track gets damaged this option will restore it". I'm thinking maybe this is better than re-installing EZ-bios on the drive, since I would probably lose the backup. Whatdaya' think? For the future, I think you're right about partitions - I think I'll just partition - what's the limitation for Win ME, 32GB? That's not too bad, just 3 drives, and might even make organizing easier. Thanks.

 

[paparazi]

Some HD's, Westerndigital being one of them, have wiered jumper configuration when another drive is present (not the usual Master/slave jumper settings you would expect)
Have you tried this "backup drive" as master on the secondary channel with a CDrom as slave?
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[GLee2]

Yes, I tried another channel and it didn't work. Any other ideas?