I'm trying to get a used computer set up for the kid for Christmas and can not seem to find the info I need. It is an older box...Compaq Prosignia 300. I bought it used and it has NT 4.0 installed on it. It boots fine to the NT login...however, I do not have the passwords. I tried Administrator with a null password as well. Anyway, the box is a SCSI box. I was hoping to boot to DOS or WinMe from a floppy so that I could FDISK, FORMAT and then load from a CD. But, I can not get the hard drive to be seen from DOS. I got the driver for the SCSI adapter from the Compaq website...it works, because I can boot and see the CD ROM, but not either of the two hard drives.

What is the trick here. None of the Compaq info says anything at all about this. Right now, I am getting the message "No logical drives available", however, I have LASTDRIVE=Z in my CONFIG.SYS.

If someone can help, I might be enticed to send you the spare 2.1 Gig SCSI hard drive as a token of my appreciation.

Delpart.exe clears ntfs partitions.

http://www.rustysmith.com/delpart.htm

Maybe this will get you going.
Vera

This can really be a problem, I run into this occasionally. I rebuild the older pewters like that and give them to kids for a first computer.
One trick I use is to slave it off another computer and wipe the HDD clean, then reinstall in the original computer and install anOS.

Good luck!!

Bill K.

Hhmmmm. Thanks for the speedy responses!

I have found a number of utilities to help clean the partition. But, I have to be able and boot and recognize the harddrive to get there.

I may be able to slave it off another machine if I have to, but I really don't want to do that.

But hey, I just realized...slaving it and wiping is only half the battle...my install CD will still not boot.

Or dl the Drive utility from the HD mfg. This should boot any OS system. Then wipe format and partition using the HD mfg's utility. Believe Samsung has a universal utility if you can't find OEM utility.

I haven't worked with ntfs but what i would do next is download a boot disk for winnt. maybe then the drive will be seen.you could find something here

http://bootdisk.com/

delpart may not be on it but download it and add it to the bootfloppy

Vera

Thanks vera...I hadn't seen that site yet. I've been to several, and none that I have found yet have SCSI support...so close, yet so far. The nagging thing for me is that I can use the CD-ROM on the same freaking controller...

look for the boot disk with scsi support here

http://support.micronpc.com/file_lib/boot.html

Vera

Awesome.