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Thread ID: 53374	2005-01-15 22:39:00	"Unknown Partition" - HDD not recognised by WinXP	Mike (15)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
314596	2005-01-15 22:39:00	My secondary HDD is for some reason not being recognised by Windows XP. BIOS detects it fine, and Windows knows it is there, however if I go into Disk Management and look for the drive it is there listed as "Unknown Partition", and I cannot assign a drive letter or do anything to the drive except "Delete Partition". If I delete the partition, create a new partition, and format the new partition it is visible and usable until I restart - then it is back to its "Unknown Partition" state. Any suggestions? Mike.	Mike (15)
314597	2005-01-15 22:49:00	BIOS stopping the partition table being written? (Or MBR being changed). Try partitioning it off a boot disk/CD and see if you get any errors.	ninja (1671)
314598	2005-01-15 23:52:00	BIOS stopping the partition table being written? (Or MBR being changed). Try partitioning it off a boot disk/CD and see if you get any errors. No idea - I booted to my XP CD and loaded the recovery console. Ran DISKPART and deleted then recreated the partition, and formatted... Restarted to the recovery console and the partition was there and accessable. Restarted to XP and its there but "Unknown Partition" again - only option in Disk Management again is to delete partition. Mike.	Mike (15)
314599	2005-01-16 00:12:00	How big is the 2nd hdd??? Maybe the BIOS needs updating. Does the BIOS detect the whole hdd??	Speedy Gonzales (78)
314600	2005-01-16 00:48:00	What happens if you use something like Partition Magic?	Edward (31)
314601	2005-01-16 00:49:00	How big is the 2nd hdd??? Maybe the BIOS needs updating. Does the BIOS detect the whole hdd?? I've had the drive for a couple of years, and this has only started in the past week or two. The drive is only 40gb - the primary drive is 160gb and works fine (and is detected fine by both BIOS and Windows). The 40gb was being used as a backup drive :p Some backup ;) Mike.	Mike (15)
314602	2005-01-16 00:50:00	What happens if you use something like Partition Magic? Same as everything else - Windows can see the drive, but as an Unknown Partition which I cannot access without deleting and recreating etc., and then it is only until the next restart anyway. Mike.	Mike (15)
314603	2005-01-16 06:17:00	It was staring me in the face :) I had a bootloader installed, which hid "Primary" partitions that weren't associated with each OS I chose to run. I removed the bootloader and it's working fine again. I suppose if I reinstall the bootloader it'll pick up that I want that drive to be associated with XP and should work fine... but for now I don't need it, so I'm back to the standard Windows booter. Mike.	Mike (15)
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