Can't get Win2k to see my 2nd hard drive

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Thu Mar 28, 2002 10:01 pm

I have an Abit BE6-II motherboard with 2 Highpoint controllers. I have a single 18 gig IBM hard drive located on one of the highpoint controllers and Win2k will not see it. The drive is properly recognized by the hightpoint bios during boot, showing DMA 4 mode. This drive does not have a primary partition. My boot drive is a 9 gig Seagate SCSI drive on a Tekram SCSI controller.

What is really weird is Windows XP can see the drive if I have it connected to the highpoint controller, but not Win2k. I've tried the add/remove hardware and had Win2k search for new devices, but found none. The only hard drive displayed is the 9 gig SCSI as drive C. The IBM drive should be shown as drive D but nothing is shown in my computer. In device manager, it properly shows the hightpoint controller as a SCSI device and says it's working properly.

Any ideas?

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 7:50 am

When I recently added my second new SCSI HDD to my PC, I first tryed it w/o formatting as the instructions said it had been "low level" formatted already (so I thought I could maybe bypass the format step) but like you, Win2K didn't see it until I then formatted the HDD.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 10:50 am

The hard drive is already formatted. If win2k can't see the drive, how can I format it? I find it strange that XP can see it as drive D, but win2k can't.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 1:34 pm

Can you see the drive in Disk Management (Control Panel->Admin Tools->Computer Management->Disk Management)?

bluewhale · Post by **bluewhale** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 1:49 pm

extra thought: what happens when you place the 'missing' drive on one of the other controllers? As you can see it in XP but not W2K maybe it's a driver issue for that controller?

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 2:23 pm

Yeah, if I place the drive on the DAM33 controllers, it's see's it fine as drive D. I haven't tried the diskmanagement view yet FP, but will later tonight when I get home. I'm using the correct ribbon, it's a 80 pin ribbon with the colored coded connectors - blue for motherboard, black for master, and grey for slave.

I know I have the latest drivers for the highpoint controller, because after I installed Win2k, it had a yellow exclamation point on the hightpoint. I then clicked on update driver and feed it the floppy with the win9x, win2k, and winXP driver. I then selected the one for Win2k and installed it. There are no errors for the highpoint controller in device manager. It says all is working fine with no problems detected.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Fri Mar 29, 2002 10:13 pm

If you can see it in Disk Management, then it may just need a letter assigned to it which you can do from there. Sometimes Win2K doesn't assign a letter.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Mar 30, 2002 12:27 am

It does not show up in disk management.

I've tried cable select and slave hard drive with no luck either. Deleted the highpoint drivers and let windows re-detect the device, but the same thing. I have no idea why Win2k will not see the drive, yet XP see's the drive just fine.

Radboy · Post by **Radboy** » Sat Mar 30, 2002 12:33 am

Did you format it with NTFS v5.1 that comes with WXP?

It's a different version of NTFS that W2K can't read:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/17783.html

I have the same 'problem'.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Mar 30, 2002 1:44 pm

Hey Rad! The drive is formatted with FAT32. Both the boot drive and this spare drive (with no primary partition) are formatted with FAT32. I've even moved the ribbon from the primary hightpoint controller to the secondary hightpoint controller and still the same thing. The only time the drive is seen when I have it on the DMA33 IDE controller.

Radboy · Post by **Radboy** » Sat Mar 30, 2002 2:14 pm

if you can see the drive in another o/s, then that means the problem isn't hardware-related, and must be software-related, cuz it's the same hardware in both o/s'es .. only the software changes between each o/s.

there are many diff software variables. i look at drivers, or manybe firmware first and go from there.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sat Mar 30, 2002 5:53 pm

It's definently a driver issue with win2k. After swapping hard drives out and attaching the hard drive with XP, I noticed in device manager it only has the highpoint controller under SCSI devices. In win2k when I attach the hard drive, it see's it as a "Hightpoint RCM Device". What the hell is a RCM device?

I then looked at the driver for XP called Hpt3xx.sys. The one in win2k is called Hpt3xxNT.sys. So I copied the XP driver over (after renaming the original one) and rebooted. The drive is now seen in win2k, but I have a yellow exclimation point for this RCM device.

Thoughs?

Should I download the highpoint drivers directly from highpoint, as I'm using the mobo ones from Abit?

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Mar 30, 2002 6:54 pm

Should I download the highpoint drivers directly from highpoint, as I'm using the mobo ones from Abit?

NO! I used to have an Abit BE6 II board. You CAN'T use the generic Highpoint drivers with them - it'll cause all kinds of problems including drive corruption. You have to use the ones from Abit.

If I remember correctly, your Highpoint drivers also need to match the BIOS version so make sure you also have the latest BIOS installed.

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Sun Mar 31, 2002 3:59 pm

Sorry if I'm bringing this topic up from the dead but I have to say FP's statement is incorrect in certain situations. I have owned 3 different motherboards and all have had Highpoint controllers. I never once used Abit's or respected manufacturer's drivers (Abit BE6, Abit KT7A-RAID, Iwill XP333-R). Now as to the RCM device, I don't know what it is but in Win2k it is ALWAYS seen and in XP it isn't, strange if you ask me. Are you using the default XP drivers for the chipset? That might be why it works in XP and not 2k. Driver and BIOS versions must match. If ur using updated drivers w/ outdated BIOS things won't work and most likely ur using XP default drivers which "match" your BIOS. I'm not on my home computer right now so I can't tell you the files used for 2000. Basically check your BIOS version and then see what drivers are being used in 2000. Most likely they are mismatched with the drivers being updated. Only bad part is not all motherboard manufacturers release a new BIOS w/ updated HPT BIOS so therefore you have to get a hacked one or hack it yourself.

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Sun Mar 31, 2002 4:15 pm

I went to Abit's site in Tiwan, and downladed the latest one from that site. It seems that the USA site does not have the latest drivers. The bios on the highpoint is the latest version 0.95b. When you flash the bios, it also flashes the highpoint controller bios too.

I tried the drivers from the Tiwan site, but it still does not see the drive in win2k. I searched through Google, and several said to disable in the bios "PNP OS Installed - YES" to "PNP OS Installed - NO". So I tried that option and no-go. So I went back to my method of using the XP driver (Hpt3xx.sys) to make it work. It works, but I don't like the fact I had to "hack" the drivers to make it work.