[S Hilliard]

Okay, so I finally bit the bullet and reformatted my first computer last night. The good news is that I discovered the original OS was not Windows ME as I'd been told by the total incompetents at Staples when I'd asked them to do that for me, but Windows 98. It did install with no major hitches.

Then I went the second part of the plan and installed Windows 2000 on top of that. No apparent hitches, I've gots me a brand new computer.

That's where the good news ends.

See, before all this fiasco started, I had an HP 6635 with two hard drives in my possession (10 GB C: and 40 GB D:), Windows 2000 OS. When I installed Win98, I understood that the NTFS file format would give me troubles and I likely wouldn't be able to access my D: drive. I wasn't. No worries. I've got the lot backed up as it is.

Then I installed the Win2000, and now I seem to have FOUR hard drives: C:, D:, E:, and F:. C: and F: are 2 GB and seem to hold program files and the OS (both of them), E: is 10 GB and holds more program files, and D: is completely inaccessible.

I know I had to create a partition when I installed Win98, but I didn't touch my original D: drive to reformat it, and Win2000 is NTFS, so I was under the impression that it would be accessible. I have no real problem if the content of the hard drive is lost, but I would dearly like my full 50 GB of space back.

Any advice? Help?

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Is your win2k disk an upgrade disk?

[Tyger]

Is your win2k disk an upgrade disk?

[S Hilliard]

Is your win2k disk an upgrade disk?

I don't believe so, but that was the option that it gave me when I ran it. The upgrade attempt failed the first time around, so I had to just install cleanly.

[Tyger]

Sorry to ask so many questions but do you really need win98? And would you rather just have the OS on one disk and your major files on the other? You could use Killdisk to completely wipe both disks, removing all partitions and data and redo the install just on C:, then use the OS to format the D: drive.

[S Hilliard]

It was Windows 98.

I tried reinstalling Windows 2000 straight up, but the install failed about five times, getting hung up on a keyboard layout file that refused to cooperate. I tried it with different keyboards, no keyboards... nothing worked. The tech-savvy friend who lent me the Win2000 in the first place recommended the reformatting course of action after that.

Also, it seemed to work out in my noob-logic, until I got to this point.