Removing a HD/CD-ROM in WinME

[Bodhisattva/GoldenSilence]

Hello, all. I've got a Windows-related question that I hope someone can help me out with.

I've currently got a system with 2 CD-ROM drives and 2 HD's. What I am planning to do is to take one of each type and put them in a new system I'm building. However, I'm not 100% sure on how to properly remove the old devices from the current system.

As the subject suggests, I'm on WinME. Basically, do I need to somehow tell Windows that I'm going to remove the drives before I unplug them. . . or can I just unplug 'em, reboot, and hope that Plug and Play will auto-detect that the drives are no longer there?

If I need to "uninstall" the drives before I unplug them, how would I go about doing so? Device Manager? I see a listing in DM regarding the CD-ROM drive, but not so for the hard drive.

FYI, the HD I want to remove is a secondary HD; it does not contain any partitions or an OS, only MP3's and some installed games. Also, preserving the data on the HD is not an issue, as I've already backed it all up.

If this isn't clear, please let me know. Any help is sincerely appreciated. . . thanks!

[Sephiroth]

Just remove the drives and set the JUMPERS of all of them to single or master w/o slave. Thats all you should have to do.

im assuming your not going to hook up another drive in either system.

[CCSDUDE]

It's fine, the BIOS will take note of the missing IDE chips (the HD) and ignore it thus allowing windows to use that to update it's configuration.

However, when you install the D drive in the new system it'll have to be D. Don't ask me why, but sometimes Windows refuses to take a drive that was formatted as D and is moved over a letter.

Hasn't happened often to me, but it has none the less.

Other then that it'll be fine.

Peace

[Bodhisattva/GoldenSilence]

Thanks for the quick replies! :tilted

Originally posted by Sephiroth
im assuming your not going to hook up another drive in either system.
That's correct; both systems will have a single HD & CD-ROM.

Originally posted by CCSDUDE
It's fine, the BIOS will take note of the missing IDE chips (the HD) and ignore it thus allowing windows to use that to update it's configuration.

However, when you install the D drive in the new system it'll have to be D. Don't ask me why, but sometimes Windows refuses to take a drive that was formatted as D and is moved over a letter.
So, I guess BIOS will take note of the missing CD-ROM drive as well then? Oh, and the new system will have WinXP, so I'll just reformat the swapped HD during XP setup. That should let Windows reassign C: to it, right?

Thanks again.

[notbob]

turn off computer

remove drives

reset jumpers (single, cable select or master)

bios will update itself, windows will update itself the 1st time you turn it back on

that thing about d: staying d:? total crap, as long as it doesn't have windows on it--the other computer will make it c: by default

trust me on this one--i've done this hundreds of times on scores of computers--all types, shapes, and sizes--66Mhz p1's to dual xeons, athalon k6's, slot 1 pentium 2's, AT, ATX, gateway, dell, generic, ibm, diamond flower international, you friggin' name it

[Sephiroth]

Originally posted by Bodhisattva/GoldenSilence
Thanks for the quick replies! :tilted


That's correct; both systems will have a single HD & CD-ROM.


So, I guess BIOS will take note of the missing CD-ROM drive as well then? Oh, and the new system will have WinXP, so I'll just reformat the swapped HD during XP setup. That should let Windows reassign C: to it, right?

Thanks again.

If you set the jumpers correctly then it will work fine because the BIOS would detect that there is only one drive instead of two and those would work normally.

Use the defaults and let winxp format it it will do it all automatically and it formats it as c by default which is fine as long as C isnt being used for any other drives which it shouldnt be.

[Bodhisattva/GoldenSilence]

Wow, what great help. I really appreciate it, everyone.

[CCSDUDE]

Originally posted by notbob
turn off computer

remove drives

reset jumpers (single, cable select or master)

bios will update itself, windows will update itself the 1st time you turn it back on

that thing about d: staying d:? total crap, as long as it doesn't have windows on it--the other computer will make it c: by default

trust me on this one--i've done this hundreds of times on scores of computers--all types, shapes, and sizes--66Mhz p1's to dual xeons, athalon k6's, slot 1 pentium 2's, AT, ATX, gateway, dell, generic, ibm, diamond flower international, you friggin' name it

You nailed it, dude.

Every drive I've worked on that had a D an wigged with other drive as secondary had an OS on it.

[zaphodiv]

On every system I'v played with win9x and FAT filesystems, windows gives drive letters to the primary partition on each physical drive first, primary master is c:,
first prtition onf primary slave is D:, secondary master is e: etc
Then it allocates drive letters to the logical partitions.

If it is not booting off the drive window will not be bothered about what is on it (provided it's not corrupt).

I suspect the behaviour you have seen may be due to the type of filesystem on the drive.
IIRC win9x dos mode can't read NTFS drives. It would make sense for the bootloader to give drive letters to the partitions that it knows how to read and for NTFS partitions to be mounted later when the windows kernel is available to interpreit it.

[Krell]

This is the Windows drive allocation schema:


Hard Disk 1: Primary Partition
C:

Hard Disk 1: Logical Partitions
D:, (if no other physical drives present)
E:, (if 2nd physical drive present)

Hard Disk 2: Primary Partition
D: will precede a logical partition

Hard Disk 2: Logical Partitions
F:, (if other logical partitions present)

Every device in your computer has a priority. Drive letters A: and B: are reserved for the Floppy drives. Hard Drives begin with Drive letter C:. Primary DOS partitions have priority over Extended DOS partitions. Therefore, the bootable floppy drive is A:, the non-bootable floppy drive (if present) is B:, the first Active (bootable) primary partition on the first hard drive is C:. Any logical drives or Extended DOS partitions would become D:, E:, F:, etc. (Some networking software reserves Drive Letters starting with F:).

If a second hard drive is in the system, the second Primary DOS partition would be D: and then logical drives or Extended DOS partitions on the first drive would then become E:, F:, G:, respectively (Primary DOS has priority over Extended DOS) followed by any logical drives or Extended DOS partitions on the second drive.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/howto/ata_fdisk_format_sys.html