A: Drive Failure

[ImnoGuru]

Hello, I have another computer, pretty old by todays standards, but good enough for kids to plays games or learners to use. It has Windows 98, pentium chip, cd drive and a 4 gig IDE drive. The computer had trouble booting up and it took several try's to load all the drivers and update the system. I used the win 98 CD but the computer couldnt find lots of files on the Win 98 CD. I think its because the O/S isnt the same as the Win98 CD that it cant find the files. I dont know.
Anyway ....
I finally got it to boot normally and start but still a lot of drivers arent there.
The computer doesnt read the A: Drive at all.
In my computer, it shows as A: but when I load a disk in it the computer says drive is inaccessible, not ready.
I went through all the previous suggestions for an A: Drive not working, even deleted the drive in device manager, rebooted so on and still it dont work.
So I thought, OK I'll install Windows 2000, that way it will get all the drivers it needs and see the A: Drive and reinstall it. Should cure the problem.

Well Ive found out that the C: Drive has been partitioned into three parts.
C: is the O/S Win98 on a 1 gig partition
D: is a 1 gig partition, and
E: is a 2 gig partition then a small amount of unallocated is the remainder.

Now, here's another problem for me, during the install of Win 2000 the screen comes up with a selection of (see photo)
1/ Format partition and use NTFS file system
2/ Format partition and use FAT file system
3/ Convert the partition to NTFS
4/ Leave the file system in tact ( no changes)

The thing is, I dont know what the difference is between FAT and NTFS and I didnt know if the C: Drive had enough space on it to load Win2000, so I decided to install Win2000 on the D: partition. ( maybe thats wrong to do that too, because I'll end up with 2 (two) O/S's on the drive and the Win98 is damaged.)
I really wanted to upgrade the Win98 to Win2000, not actually a real new install, but the system (Win98) is so damaged that it keeps locking up during the upgrade and fails to complete.
All this just to get the A: drive working

Well I suppose I should format the drive C: and install the Win2000 as the O/S, but what to use Fat or NTFS and if I format the C: will it also format the whole drive?? ... ie; C, D and E: the whole 4 1/2 Gig? or just the 1 Gig known as C:?

Could somebody please impart their infinite wisdom or knowledge so that I might get this computer operating.
Thank you for your help ImnoGuru. 

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Karnac]

Check out this video for an explanation of the file systems.

http://www.professormesser.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=145

[patio]

I'd go with NTFS and install to C:...
When you format a partition it doesn't touch the other partitions...
Of course this is in theory in the PC world which is why good backups are always a great thing to have...

You will be very happy with Win2k...most solid OS to ever come out of Redmond...

[ImnoGuru]

Hmmmm , wellllll  that worked ... sort of... I installed the new O/s and it all works ok... just it doesnt READ the A drive  !!!
Now it actually sees the A Drive, the light stays on all the time on the A Drive though.
So I fiddled with cables and physical drives, but I cant get the drive to read a disk.

I pulled the cable off from the mobo and reversed it and back again, off the A drive and reversed it and back again changed another A drive and tested it all again but still cant get the A drive to read a disk.

When Im in my computer and I hover the mouse over the drive icons the image comes up with the contents of the drive C: D: CD: but the A: Drive doesnt, and when I click on the icon the computer screen displays "Insert a disk"
Does anyone have any Ideas to try and resolve this issue for me to try please?

[quaxo]

You need to reverse the end at the drive, not the one at the motherboard. Also, make sure your drive is connected AFTER the twist in the cable.

[ImnoGuru]

Thank you quaxo, thats a good thought. I tried most all the combinations I could think of and yet sometimes the simple things ellude me.
I'll give that a try and see where we end up.
Im pretty sure Ive got the twist at the correct end though.
You never know maybe I just cant see the forest for the trees.

[BC_Programmer]

Quaxi is right- if the light on the floppy is always on the FDD connector at the drive end is upside down.

[ImnoGuru]

Wonderful help quaxo, just goes to show you that you can try too hard to get something simple working.

Turned out it was the User, part:  ID TEN T.        

BC_Programmer thanks for the input too. I just must have got so confused with desperation frustration.

Thanks everyone for your help.
ImnoGuru  ( User part ID 10 T ).

[quaxo]

hehe you wouldn't believe how often I've seen people make that mistake, even people who should know what they're doing