wtf does my hdd do this?

[slightlyhuman]

I reinstalled windows on my pc last night and i have a 120GB hd for my windows install. then i have a 160GB hd for my backup. Well just to be safe since this has happened before, i backed up everything on my 160gb hd to dvd's.

so i go to install windows, format the 120gb hd using the win xp pro boot disc, install windows and then log into windows for the first time.

i goto my computer and try to go into the 160gb hd folder and it says this drive has not been formatted. i couldn't access it until i formatted which in return deleted everything.

why the fvck does it do that when i didn't even touch the 160gb hd while installing windows on my other hd?

 

[CalvinHobbes]

Did you go into Disk Manager to see what was wrong with the 160GB drive? I've seen drives that have no drive letters or has hidden partitions after Windows is installed. Could be that the drive has a signature that Windows doesn't recognize.

 

[slightlyhuman]

Originally posted by: CalvinHobbes
Did you go into Disk Manager to see what was wrong with the 160GB drive? I've seen drives that have no drive letters or has hidden partitions after Windows is installed. Could be that the drive has a signature that Windows doesn't recognize.

yes it had a drive letter. before i formatted it was named "BACKUP" but after reinstalling it was named "Local Disk D"

what do you mean about a signature not being recognized?

i'm not mad because i backed everything up just in case it did it again, i just wanna know why it does that
.

 

[slightlyhuman]

any other thoughts?

 

[1sikbITCH]

If you had a "dynamic" partition on the 160GB, that partition was linked to your Windows installation. Once you reformatted and reinstalled your C drive, the dynamic partition would be inaccessable. It's been so long since I made that mistake, though, that I'm fuzzy on the details.

 

[slightlyhuman]

Originally posted by: 1sikbITCH
If you had a "dynamic" partition on the 160GB, that partition was linked to your Windows installation. Once you reformatted and reinstalled your C drive, the dynamic partition would be inaccessable. It's been so long since I made that mistake, though, that I'm fuzzy on the details.

how do you go about not doing this?

 

[GregMal]

Did you have both drives on the same controller?
If they were on the same controller and both were the "active" drive,
you may have problems.........

 

[CalvinHobbes]

Originally posted by: DP

Originally posted by: 1sikbITCH
If you had a "dynamic" partition on the 160GB, that partition was linked to your Windows installation. Once you reformatted and reinstalled your C drive, the dynamic partition would be inaccessable. It's been so long since I made that mistake, though, that I'm fuzzy on the details.

how do you go about not doing this?

In Disk Management you can check and see how the drive is set. It's either going to be basic or dynamic. You can go from dynamic back to basic but you lose all the data. At least that's how it was the last time I did it.

 

[1sikbITCH]

Sorry, forgot I even posted here.

Calvin nailed it. Right click My Computer, choose Manage, then go down to Disk Management. Each disk (not partition) will be listed as basic or dynamic, and you can right click on it and change it.

I have no idea what the purpose is of a Dynamic drive in the first place, since it's linked to the OS and subject to be lost every time you reformat. I would google it now because I'm curious, but I'm on Comcast and we're in the middle of a big crap-out. I can't get to Google or a bunch of other sites at the moment. (subtle plea for someone to explain what a dynamic drive is actually used for)

 

[Brian23]

Disks bigger than 137GB need 48bit addressing to support them. Install Service Pack 1 to get support for it. (There might be a hack you have to do in addition to installing SP1. Look up LBA48 for more info.)