missing drive letter

[tholts]

System: Asus p2b, Maxtor 13.6 gig divided into c:/10.2gig and d:/3.4 gig, Win 98, internal zip as e, cd rom on f & g, camera connect pro is h. Udma on.
Problem: D drive vanished. Letters of all other drives remained the same. in System properties, maxtor drive reads as a 10.2 gig drive. Bios at start up sees it as 13.6 gig.
Question: How do I get d: back intact?

[f r e d]

Hi Tholts,
Well, never seen that before!
The BIOS see's the drive but that is to be expected. The size is just reported by the drive itself. Windows can't see the partition, so there must be something wrong with that partition. Run FDISK and have a look to see what it says about the partitions on the drive. Come back and tell us!

[Nathan]

Try downloading tweakUI, install it, and make sure D drive is checked under the heading My Computer.

www.helponthe.net/nathan/ (http://www.helponthe.net/nathan/)

It's under utilities.

Let us know if that helps. Good Luck!

[This message has been edited by Nathan (edited 03-30-99).]

[tholts]

TweakUI shows the drive checked; I toggled it to see if that would help, no dice.

fdisk shows only the 10.2 gig partition.

I called powerquest to see if they had anything that would rescue the data from behind the partition; they recommended lost and found, $79. I wish I could access that last 3.4 gig! It just bugs me! It's not critical that I get to it in the next week, I have some time to think about it. But this should be a simple, common Windows problem to fix, I would think. The dividing line has vanished. the data is still there, it's just hidden. You'd think someone would've figured a way to fix that.
Ah, but I rant on and editorialize now. What I'm puzzled by is that the D: drive has been skipped. Usually when a drive vanishes all the others move up one letter. So this drive is still there, somehow. I'll get everything back, with time, but I don't know how yet. Thanks for the replies.

Tom Brenholts
Mosca

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

I am curious: Have you created and formated an extended partition? Sorry if it sounds like a stupid question.

[This message has been edited by ANTONIO E GUERRA (edited 03-30-99).]

[tholts]

No, I haven't done any partitioning other than when I installed the drive. Some other things in my system have started to go flakey in the last couple hours, however; my cursor is alternating between pointer and hourglass every 5 seconds or so, and I've had icon screwups a couple times over the last month. Maybe it's time for a re-install of Win98? I don't want to lose those pictures, though.

Tom Brenholts
Mosca

[Bleeding Edge]

Have you run a virus detection program.
There are master boot record/sector viruses.

[ENVY]

Is fdisk reporting the partition on the drive in question as a non-dos partition?I have seen several virus's that cause these types of problems.Run a scan and see what you find

[ANTONIO E GUERRA]

Well, you need to create a backup. Did you use the Maxblast, utility to install the hard drive? It will format and partition your hard drive. Give it a try.