Hi Jaymon,

Thanks for the input. No, all the drives on this machine (as my others) are
formatted with 4096 Byte NTFS sector size.

I checked every physical and software settings I could think of - from drive
jumper settings to sector sizes - but this one particular drive simply does
not show up anywhere in a DOS environment capable of handling large NTFS
drives. I have no problem with any of the other 8 large (250GB - 300GB)
drives I have on the machines I work with - only this one.

I am tending to think it is a one-of-a-kind drive hardware oddity because
the unit itself works fast and unerringly in a Windows environment. Maybe I
should preserve it for research later but for now I am reconfiguring my back
up utilities on this one machine so that file & folder back ups and drive
images are done to a drive other than the errant Hitachi unit!

An associate who stopped by yesterday left with slightly fewer hairs on his
head - after much head-scratching trying to figure it out!

Regards and thanks again.

Manu








"Jaymon" <Jaymon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FF9AB661-DB8D-4BE4-9324-58CA2F3C0AF5@microsoft.com...
> Manu,
> When you originally formated the Hitachi 250, did you by chance change the
> cluster
> size from 4KB (Allocation unit size, default) to something higher..?
> Just a thought..
> j;-j
>
> "Manu" wrote:
>
>> Hi Jaymon,
>>
>> Thanks for the excellent reference links - they have been very
>> informative.
>>
>> I checked the info on the Symantec link with my issue and found that
>> there
>> was no reason why this particular drive is not seen by Ghost 2003. And I
>> successfully updated the BIOS on the Promise card (the driver was
>> current
>> already).
>>
>> But this phenomenon still persisted. But one thing changed though: If I
>> use
>> the Ghost utility off a floppy it now sees the drive in the window where
>> it
>> lists the source drives. But it is still invisible in the destination
>> drives
>> and directories window! Extremely weird.
>>
>> For now, I decided to address the issue simply by changing the location
>> of
>> my weekly drive image (and documents sync folder + other back-up stuff)
>> to
>> the 300GB drive which does not have the Ghost issue. I had originally
>> planned to use the Hitachi 250GB but I do not want to take any chances
>> now
>> in the event that this drive might someday turn inaccessible to any OS or
>> utility!
>>
>> Thanks very much again for the very helpful informative links! Much
>> appreciate it.
>>
>> Regards.
>>
>> Manu
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "Jaymon" <Jaymon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:1EA7310B-E697-4A93-BE80-BE22F14956A6@microsoft.com...
>> > Check out this page and see if it applies..
>> >
>> > http://symantec.atgnow.com/consumer/...esultType=5000
>> >
>> > Look here for updated drivers, bios,.. etc for your raid card here..
>> >
>> > http://www.promise.com/support/downl...ory=all&os=100
>> >
>> > Your problem may not be solely related to XP, you should try exploring
>> > the
>> > above sites, if you haven't already done so..
>> > Hope this can help you..
>> > j;-j
>> >
>> > "Manu" wrote:
>> >
>> >> Recently, I replaced a Western Digital 160GB drive on one PC with a
>> >> Hitachi
>> >> 250GB one. This is the master on the primary IDE channel on a Promise
>> >> TX2
>> >> Ultra-133 PCI Controller. The drive was partitioned (NTFS) and
>> >> formatted
>> >> in
>> >> Disk Management and works perfectly in Windows (XP Pro).
>> >>
>> >> However, Ghost 2003 cannot see this drive when it reboots to write an
>> >> image.
>> >> Sees it fine within Windows though. I tried to use Ghost off a floppy
>> >> and
>> >> it
>> >> too cannot see the drive. The drive does have the required "Ghost ID".
>> >> I
>> >> borrowed an Acronis TrueImage utility floppy and it cannot see the
>> >> drive
>> >> either!
>> >>
>> >> On a whim, I tested NTFS4DOS off a floppy and it does not see the
>> >> drive
>> >> also. Carrying the whim further, I temporarily restored this PC with a
>> >> older
>> >> Windows 98SE image which had large-drive support as well as NTFS4Win
>> >> installed. That too does not see the drive! But it does see the 300GB
>> >> drive
>> >> that is also on the controller. Incidentally, Device Manager in that
>> >> Windows
>> >> 98SE does show the Hitachi drive, but without a drive letter assigned
>> >> and
>> >> reporting it as an "unknown partition". I surmised that this is not a
>> >> Ghost-related problem.
>> >>
>> >> I tried a partition delete + recreate + format using the Hitachi/IBM
>> >> drive
>> >> set-up utility but it did not help. Physicals - jumpers, changing over
>> >> to
>> >> the secondary IDE controller, drive fitness test, chkdsk etc. - all
>> >> were
>> >> tried. When I put the old drive back, everything works fine again, at
>> >> least
>> >> as far as Ghost is concerned.
>> >>
>> >> I do regular Ghost image back ups and need this drive functional
>> >> within
>> >> its
>> >> operations - hence this post.
>> >>
>> >> I would really appreciate any insights on what to look for in
>> >> addressing
>> >> this issue. Please excuse my verbosity here!
>> >>
>> >> Regards and have a nice day.
>> >>
>> >> Manu
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>