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Dimension 8200 reformat, issues with second hard drive
Dell Dimension 8200 desktop computer
i just reformatted and loaded windows xp from the restore cd. i have an 80gb primary hard drive on C and a 250gb secondary hard drive on D. this same configuration has been in place for several years with no problems.
C drive has windows and programs. D drive has documents and files.
i backed up documents from D to external hard drive so i have that if i need it.
after i reformatted, windows recognizes the D drive but when i click on it, it says "disk in drive D is not reformatted, do you want to format".
when i did the reformat, i only deleted the primary C partiition and loaded windows to it. i did not do anything to the D drive.
the D drive is listed, and shows in the disk management screen as healthy and active. weird though, it only shows 128gb on the disk management screen.
is there a setting or a step i missed to make this entire drive accessible? i really don't want to have to reformat it if i don't have to.
let me know.
thanks.
chris
C3PO5
2.7K Posts
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January 16th, 2012 12:00
Hi
You should have removed the D:\ drive before you installed windows on your C:\ drive the D:\ has your boot files on it now and it will not let you format D:\ that is why it is active try installing XP again but unplug your D:\ and make sure your data
cable is going to your C:\ DRIVE FIRST after you do this you can plug your D:\ back in then format it Disk manager !
Good Luck
Mary G
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January 16th, 2012 14:00
Most likely you don't have 2 separate hard drives. C & D are usually partitions on a single hard drive on computers from that time. C was for Windows and D was for Data and programs. Dell abandoned this format a while ago. Open Device Manager, Disk drives and look at the list of drives. There will be hard drives and others--optical etc--but you should be able to tell which is the hard drive(s) , Or just open the case and look at the hard drive. Manual is here with illustrations: support.dell.com/.../index.htm You really need to combine C & D if they are both partitions. Instructions here: support.microsoft.com/.../309000.
cdcutlip
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January 16th, 2012 20:00
no, definitely 2 hard drives as i bought the second and installed it as a slave several years ago.
since i wasn't too far along in the new set up process, i reformatted c again, after disconnecting 2nd hard drive. then connected second hard drive and rebooted. it recognized the drive and i was able to format within windows. only recognzed 128gb though.
a quick google search pointed to the fact that windows xp, prior to service pack 2, would only recognize up to 128gb of larger hard drives. updated to xp sp 2 and found unpartitioned space in disk management. partitioned and reformatted and entire 300gb now shows.
now i'm copying my backup from my external hard drive to the 300gb western digital drive.
after that, installing all components, tools, programs onto newly reformatted primary hard drive. it seems to be running much faster already.
the computer is 10 years old, maxed out at 2gb memory, and probably hasn't had any kind of significant work on it in 5+ years. i hope reformatting will have it running smoothly again and may get another 1-2 years of life out of it (email, internet, photo storage, etc).
thanks.
C3PO5
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January 16th, 2012 20:00
Hi cdcutilp
That is good news , glade it work out for you.
Good Luck