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General discussion

Having a problem with a hard drive.

Sep 24, 2004 11:00PM PDT

I have 2 hard drives in my PC. I use a 15 GB for just my windows. I also use a 160 GB for everything else. I have the 160 Gb drive partitioned into 5 smaller Drives. 2 of the drives will not let me into them. The have more than enough free space. (one has 26.7 GB free, and the other has 21.7 GB free. These are both out of 30 GB.) When I double click on the drive in the My Computer screen, it freezes and becomes non responcive. I tried to brouse the folder and got a message that the hard drive needed to be formated. I want to keep all the data on this hard drive. What do I do?

Discussion is locked

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Re: Having a problem with a hard drive.
Sep 24, 2004 11:14PM PDT

XP has issues with drives over 127GB. That is until you install SP1. But you didn't write that information.

There are also issues that I will never debate with anyone that decides that "partitions" are the best way to keep stuff organized. The horror stories have never stopped and all I can offer is that if you don't backup that hard drive data then you will lose it.

What I suggest is to use simple methods. I have my USB 2.0 160GB drive as one partition. I make a directory and toss a daily backup of my stuff there. Monthlys are now on a set of DVDRs.

The directories work just fine, but some want drive letters.

In closing, get the maker's DRIVE FITNESS TEST and see if the drive is OK.

In closing, you must format drives to use them. You didn't write you did that step.

Bob

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Please ALWAYS tell us
Sep 24, 2004 11:16PM PDT

what Operating System you are using.

Did the two partitons ever work correctly and then start having the problem??

Is the full 160 GB of the drive recognized in the BIOS.

Wonder if you've run into the 137 GB limit and a BIOS/Operatingf System that does not PROPERLY support drives larger than that.

Search the forums for the 137 GB limit.

Robert Proffitt has posted info on the problem a number of times.

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Re: Having a problem with a hard drive.
Sep 25, 2004 8:33AM PDT

I wonder why you have so much partitions in one HDD.
If you use FDISK from the DOS prompt in partiotioning your hard disk, I presume that you formatted all those partitions and you used only one partition with an operating system in it.
The problem may had been caused by too many a partition in one hard disk.
FDISK partitions drives accordingly as such:
1. Creation of a logical drive
2. Creation of an extended dos partition
3. Creation of a logical drive in an extended dos partition.
4. Settting the active partition
The discussion in the use of disk partitioning is endless, but in my case, to prevent some problems in disk partitioning like formatting multiple partitions, invisibility of some created logical drives in disk partitioning, I stick to a rule of:
1. Creating a primary DOS partition and setting it active, and;
2. Creating an extended DOS partition
3. Displaying the disk information to check how much space I had reserved for the partitions and to check if I did the right partitioning procedure, if not, I go back to the disk partition menu, i.e., deleting the partitions again...
The use of FDISK destroys all data in the hard disk, so if you want to partition, re-partition or delete unwanted partitions in your hard disk, do use PARTITION MAGIC, it is a program that will partition your hard disk but it will not destroy existing data. Do read the help me file before you proceed.