HD/Zip drive problem

[KingPawel]

I have a partitioned hard drive, into 2 drives, and a zip drive. Before installing my zip drive, I had a C and D drive (obviously) once I put the zip drive in, the zip grabs D, and moves the second partion to E. That is not what I want. I want it to go C and D - hard drives, and E as the zip drive. I have a CD-DVD and a CDRW on the other IDE so I can't/don't want to do that, help....

[MacGyver]

If you are using Windows 9x, this is easy to fix. Go to control panel > device manager > find the one of the offending drives and double click on it to view the properties. Somewhere in there is an option to select a drive letter. Set first and last to the drive letter you want that drive to have. Do the same thing for the other drive and reboot.

[KingPawel]

yeah, I tried that, but it wouldn't let me. I couldn't highlight it. Any other ideas?

[Sowulo]

To clarify: Did you try to manually re-address the Zip or the HD? If possible, try changing the ZIP to something higher that is presently unused. If it will let you do that then manually set the CD's where you want them also and then reboot. When you return do the two HD partitions address to C and D? If so then E should now be available once again for the ZIP.

[KingPawel]

I did check that, I moved the cdroms to G and H, so now I have a C drive (HD) D drive (Zip disk) E drive (HD) and there is nothing of F. When I go to change that in the properties in the device manager, I can't highlight it, it's grayed in, and I can't pick it. Is there an another way to do this?

[Apathy]

Take out the Zip drive. Then when you boot into windows the hdd partions should be c: and d:. Lock them into c: and d:, shut down the system. Throw the zip drive back in and boot. The Zip drive should be forced to e:.

[Gabriel]

[quote]Originally posted by Apathy:
<strong>Take out the Zip drive. Then when you boot into windows the hdd partions should be c: and d:. Lock them into c: and d:, shut down the system. Throw the zip drive back in and boot. The Zip drive should be forced to e:.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apathy is on the right Track...
After Installing the Iomega-Ware Driver ou can Easily Assign Drive Letter to the Zip Drive.
For Further information Drop me a Private Messae and I will Explain it in Details

Good Luck
Gabriel

P.s. in the New release of IOmega Ware they've fixed a lot of bugs and holes.
It is really a must to check it out.

[Ya_know]

[quote]Originally posted by KingPawel:
<strong>I did check that, I moved the cdroms to G and H, so now I have a C drive (HD) D drive (Zip disk) E drive (HD) and there is nothing of F. When I go to change that in the properties in the device manager, I can't highlight it, it's grayed in, and I can't pick it. Is there an another way to do this?</strong><hr></blockquote>

By design Primary partitions are first on all drives, then logical drives. That is why Microsoft (What the hell do they know; well except maybe their own software?) recommends that if you add a second HDD you should use extended partitions only, with logical drives, to eliminate the back and forth confusion of having primary and extended partitions on more than one HDD. For some reason, Zip drives take precedence over logical drives.

Anyway, Sowulo suggested changing the zip in the device manager, and I get the impression, all that you tried was to change the HDD and CDROMS. In DM, under Computer\DiskDrives, you will see Iomega zip. In the settings tab, does it give you the opportunity to Reserve drive letters? It should; unless this is where it is grayed out, which means something is wrong. If that is the case, then as suggested above, remove the drive from DM, then physically from the PC, reboot a few times and be sure it is gone, then reinstall it.

By design you can't reserve drive letters for a HDD. Check out MS's statements about all of this
...<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q282/5/30.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=0&qry=zip%20drive&rnk=4&src=DHCS_MSPSS _gn_SRCH&SPR=W98SE" target="_blank">How to Prevent Drive Letters from Changing After You Add a Hard Disk or a CD-ROM</a>

PS. This is an internal IDE zip we are talking about, right?

[PSJ]

Hello Everyone, When trying to change the drive letter in the device manager you say it is grayed out, may sure the box is checked for REMOVEABLE and then it should let you change the letter for start and end. Hope this helps! PSJ

[Ya_know]

[quote]Originally posted by PSJ:
<strong>Hello Everyone, When trying to change the drive letter in the device manager you say it is grayed out, may sure the box is checked for REMOVEABLE and then it should let you change the letter for start and end. Hope this helps! PSJ</strong><hr></blockquote>

Good call! I don't have a zip on a nearby PC, and didn't think to look for one. Unchecked Removeable would definately grey out the drive reserve boxes...

[KingPawel]

Ok, I thought I had everything figured out, but now I have a new problem. I installed the software, and after rebooting, the zip moved down but a hard drive stayed in its place. I can't access it because it's really not there. So, as of right now, I have a C drive, D drive, which isn't really there, and I can't get rid of it. Then, a E drive, which is the 2nd partition, which should be D. Then I have my E and F which are my DVDROM and CDRW and finally G, which is my Zip.
So my question is, how do I get rid of the "phantom" D drive?
In the options under "Iomega" I can switch the Zip and the CDROMs but now the hard drives. Also, when I go to Device Manager" the only hard drives are C and E, no D.

[Ya_know]

Remove the Iomagaware, reboot and see what happens. You may have to start over installing the zip from scratch, then reinstall the Iomega software.

[This message has been edited by Ya_know (edited September 07, 2001).]

[sdrawkcab]

Is this a name-brand machine? I have had HUGE troubles on HP and Dell machines with the ZIP set as Primary Slave, the machine sees it as a 100MB HDD. When you go into FDISK you'll get an error "unable to access drive 2" if this is the case. This causes MS DOS and Windows to see the ZIP as a fixed disk with a primary partition. In this case I don't know how to fix the problem, but normally the suggestions for changing drive letters in Device Manager should work.

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