how to autodetect hdd under win98

[geo_pro]

i want to skip detecting hdd while booting.
i want to do it because in other way my d: drive becomes e: and cant use it like this.

i want my c: and d: to stay like this and second hdd (its in mobile rack) to become e:

i remember a few months ago in one compuer that when i was skippng (pressing f4 when booting) then win98 was able to use secont hdd (undetected) and the letters was after ones of first hdd. just exactly as i want it.

but now it doesnt work when i skip autodetecting hdd win98 dont see it at all.

so my question is is there any way to force windows to see hdd if it is undetected by bios?

i hope to understand me. sorry i dont speak well english http://www.sysopt.com/forum/frown.gif

10x in advance

[Mntsnow]

Sorry..if the drive is not seen by the bios then there is no way for the OS to see the drive as the OS works thru the bios to access the drive.

BIOS = Basic Input Output System

[samwichse]

Yeah, the bios has to see it first. What I would do is tinker with the order they are attached to the ide cable (master/slave). Also, which ide plug they're on until you get the order that you would like. You might try setting the CDROM as master on the second cable with the second HDD as slave, and the primary hard drive as the only one attached to the first one. It may be though that the CDROM will always be the last letter, and there's nothing you can do about it. Never really bothered me having it as e:.

[lazerbeam]

Depending on your BIOS, you can manually enter your disk's parameters, e.g., no of heads, cyls, sectors, head parking location, etc. With the data manually entered it turns off the BIOS auto detect function. Some of the newer mobos/BIOS do not allow you to do a manual configuration and rely soley on auto config (the BIOS reads the data from a ROM on the hard drive). A word of caution though, if you opt to manually configure a disk that has been set up either autoconfig or pervious manual set up and you make a changes to the cofiguration that was used in the set-up, it may render some or all of the disk unreadable. (I was going to go into an explanation of this but it started to look like a book...)Also, do not rely on the config data that is on the disk label to be the same that's contained in its configuration ROM. The only real benefit from skipping the autoconfig operation is the boot up is just a wee bit quicker.

[rhino49]

from microsoft knowledge base Q121244:
You can change the drive letter of a CD-ROM drive by performing the following steps:

1.Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

2.Double-click the System icon, and then click the Device Manager tab.

3.Click the CD-ROM drive you want to change, and then click the Properties
button.


4.Click the Settings tab.

5.In the Reserved Drive Letters section, set Start Drive Letter and End Drive
Letter to the drive letter you want the CD-ROM drive to use. Click OK until you
return to Control Panel.

6.Restart the computer.

from me: if d: is a cd-rom, set it to D: like this after booting without removable E:, then reboot with removable in to see if t works.

Or - boot with all, check properties of disk drives in device manager & see if you can set D: (the removable) to removable (check box) and then reserve it to letter f:, reboot & if it's F:, then reserve it to E:, which should now be clear.