Member Avatar for Chewchilla

Ok I know I've done this before without a hitch but I can't seem to remember how to do it now.

I just redid my system - switching from Win2k to WinME (because 2k won't support my $1000 piece of video capture hardware and there's NO way I'm buying an newer one).

The problem is I had 3 drives on that computer, drive C handled the windows system and the other two contain all my games, music, videos, etc. So I install ME on drive C, leaving the other two alone, but the new install of Windows can't see the other two drives. Bios sees them and so does Device Manager (but no drive letters have been assigned and I can't seem to assign them manually), but I can't access them. My first guess was some kind of incompatibility with partitioning in 2K, but even non-file managing programs like scandisk can't see them either. How do I fix this?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Catweazle

Dani AI

Generated

Short summary and clear next steps.

As found when Windows 2000 regained access, this is almost always a filesystem mismatch: the other disks were using a filesystem WinMe does not understand. and pointed that out earlier. Do not reformat or scramble the drives yet—once data is gone it’s much harder to recover.

Practical recovery plan (in priority order)

  • Stop using the affected drives immediately to avoid accidental writes.
  • Copy the data off before changing anything. The safest ways are: attach the drives to a machine running an NT-based Windows (Windows 2000/XP) that already reads them, or connect them via a USB-to-IDE/SATA adapter/external enclosure to another PC and copy files.
  • If you don’t have another Windows box, boot a live CD/USB that can mount modern filesystems and copy the files to an external disk.
  • Verify the copied files (open a few large files) before any reformat or OS work.

Choices after you have a verified backup

  • If you must keep using WinMe on that machine, reformat the data drives to FAT32 (backups first). Remember FAT32 has a single-file size limit (~4 GB).
  • If you prefer to keep NTFS for reliability/features, run an NT-based OS on the machine (what fixed it for you with Win2k). Many people here (see , , ) mentioned third-party bridge tools; they can help but carry risk—use them only after you’ve backed up.
  • Before any long-term decision, check the capture-card vendor for 2000/XP drivers (as suggested). If the device truly only works under Me, weigh replacing the card or keeping a dedicated NT system for storage.

Checklist: back up now, confirm backups, then reformat or change OS.

Recommended Answers

All 7 Replies

Member Avatar for Zachery

your drives are most likly NTFS partition, and ive never been able to get any thing but Linux and NT to read NTFS file systems >.> so your sorta screwed

Member Avatar for Chewchilla

I reinstalled Win2k and got access to the drives back, so I'll have to find somewhere to offload them, reformat them all, reinstall the OS, and then transfer the data back to my drives. Thanx for the tip about the the partitioning. I didn't know Win2k set them up in a way that no older OS could read.

Member Avatar for Member #1847

i know a software can solved that porblem, Partition Magic.it supports any window file system and Linux.
let say you are using fat32 in windows Me.You can acces to NTFS in diffrent drive location.
also be careful using this software,one mistake can delete you current OS.

LEX,

LEX,

Member Avatar for feigned

i know a software can solved that porblem, Partition Magic.it supports any window file system and Linux.
let say you are using fat32 in windows Me.You can acces to NTFS in diffrent drive location.
also be careful using this software,one mistake can delete you current OS.

LEX,

LEX,

Or breathing in a nondescript way can destroy the "work" that P.M. does.

Google for ntfsdos if you want read-only access to NTFS drives under a 9x system. There are some "additions" that give full access to the drives, but most likely you'll only need read to get the data off.

Member Avatar for Zachery

id go to XP if it was possible, or 98 but not ME >.>

Member Avatar for Outlander69

id go to XP if it was possible, or 98 but not ME >.>

I agree. ME is not a good OS. I had the same problem when I rebuilt my son's PC. I had XP on it, rebuilt it and used that drive as a backup. When I installed 98se and then did an ME upgrade, I couldn't see that drive. I installed XP and it fixed the prob. XP should be fine w/ the capture card too..

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Chewchilla, are you absolutely sure that video capture hardware can't be used under Windows 2000? What's the make and model number of the componet, please? There may be Windows 2000 drivers available for it, that you haven't located yet ;)

Windows Me is a terrible OS

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