> > So bottom line, what do i do to recognize this drive under win98 so i can get the files we backed up on it? As an aside, I threw the drive on my system and MY computer isn't recognizing it either, so I'm guessing it's something regarding the drive itself. any advice?
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> Dave has some suggestions.
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> 1. Just to start with the obvious, make sure you've actually partitioned the 1 Gig drive after formatting :-). Without partitioning, drives will not be displayed under FDisk, nor PartitionMagic, or anything else. In the FDisk menu, switch out of the primary drive selection and select the slave to be partitioned.
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> 2. Check Western Digital's site to review if there are any problems with upgrading WDs from Win95 to 98.
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> 3. If the 1 Gig is partitioned properly, the fastest way to check whether there is a physical hardware problem with a HD is to boot to DOS mode and see if it is being detected. (Either hold down the 'Ctrl' key during bootup and then select DOS mode from the menu; or just Restart under DOS mode).
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> 4. Failing the above -- and assuming that the slave isn't just too old to be compatible with 98 anymore -- you may want to consider upgrading the Bus Mastering drivers (i.e. the Hard Drive Controllers), since the BM drivers between Win95 and 98 are not of the same format. There shouldn't be a problem of FAT16 vs. FAT32 indexing since Win98 can handle both (as well as FAT12).
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> Wolf "but where's Dracimas when you need him? :-)" spirit

Thanx for the cudos WolfSpirit. Sounds to me like the EZ-BIOS was not allowed to load when the machine was booted to the setup disk. EZ-BIOS sets up a sort of NON-DOS partition called a Disk Overlay on the drive. When the drive is booted normally, you'll see a spot in the boot sequence where you are asked to press Space or CTRL (depending on the version of disk manager you're using) to boot to a floppy. If you do this and boot to a floppy, then run F-Disk, the partition will report as a FAT16 or a FAT32 depending on which it was given. But if you do not allow the Disk Manager to load properly and boot to the floppy disk without giving the manager a chance to ask you, you will most likely see the partition as NON-DOS, or may not see it at all. This is what it sounds like happened to me. ShadowFax did the right thing by disabling the disk manager since the system board apparantly has no problems seeing drives over 500MB. This not only allows the system to better control the drive resources and activity, but allows for faster read/write access as well.

Drac