I have several hard drives from old computers that were running Novell password protected versions of Win 2K. When I slave any one of them to my newer computer the BIOS detects it but it won't show up in My Computer. I don't know how to format them because all the tutorials I've read say that I need to enter "format [drive name]" in DOS. Since it won't show up in Windows I don't know the drive name. Is there another way to find the drive name or a different way to format them?

1. By the way I'm running Windows 98 and I currently have a floppy drive (A:), my primary hard drive (C:), and two CDROM drives (D: & E:)
2. Mostly likely it won't appear because Windows 98 supports only the following two file systems: FAT16 and FAT32
3. If you install a slave drive it usually takes over the CD drive D:

   So your new setup should be

   A: Floppy B:(optional)Floppy: C: Hard Drive D: Hard Drive E: CD drive F: CD Drive

   To check there are two things you can do. You can download a bootdisk from http://www.bootdisk.com Windows 98SE OEM version and when you put it into your computer to start it up you can choose option 2.

   Once you get into DOS type Help. then File->Open and look on your right. It should list your drives. If you see an extra drive do not worry for some reason it gives RAM its own personal letter.

   You can also use http://www.killdisk.com Active killdisk! It will erase your hard drive back to RAW so you have to Fdisk and Format but it is much more clearer on which drive is the slave drive.

   My experience: http://geocities.com/simon26501/drived.j… And No I Do not like waiting for my drives to defragment.

4. Since your goal is to format the drives not access the data you could try this, but first a disclaimer.

   This will lose all the data on the drive if it works, so proceed with caution.

   Start Win '98 in DOS mode.

   run FDisk, the Win 2K drive should show up under select drive. If it doesn't show up then this won't work so I'm sorry for wasting your time.

   Select the Win 2K drive.

   Confirm you're working on the Win 2K drive, not your Win 98 drive.

   Remove any existing partitions on it and create a new one.

   Exit FDisk, the system will reboot.

   You should be able to format the drive now.

Tags: linux driver, linux window