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bahjan

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External IBM Travelstar 60gb USB 2.0 H/D attached to IBM Tinkpad 600 Win 98SE, being seen a 'removable disk' NOT External H/D. How to deselect 'removeable' permenantly in setup.

I am running an IBM Thinkpad 600 with Windows 98SE.  I have recently bought a 60gb IBM Travelstar external H/D which I partitioned into 3 seperate drives, one of which I intend to use to as Acronis backup drive.   It is a USB 2.0 device which I have plugged into a hub.

I installed the hardware and then the software that came with the unit.  No problem, or so I thought.

My problem is that when I go to 'My Computer' while all three partitions are being seen - next to the drive letter is 'Removable disk'.  I understand that Acronis does not backup to removable media.  I searched for what is making the system see this drive as removeable.

In the device manager I see under disk drives a FUJITSI MHK2120AT listed.  Under 'Settings'  the firmware version is D834 and the settings are as follows:

Disconnect (ticked)
Sync data Transfer (ticked)
Removable (ticked)
Int 13 unit (ticked)

I deselected 'removable' by removing the tick clicking OK and as requested rebooted.
But when I rebooted, the setting had defaulted to 'Removable' again and the Travelstar partions were still listed as 'removeable disk'.  Is there anyway I can make this change permenant?

When the Travelstar is plugged into a desktop machine using XP it is immediately recognised correctly as an external drive. Also plugging the Travelstar directly into the IBM Thinkpad (not via the hub) does not seem to make any difference to the way it is being seen.

Is there some limitation on Windows 98SE seeing this drive properly, or was I supplied with the wrong driver?  I have a firewire external drive also attached to my machine and it was recognised with no problem.
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rid
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ildave1

This could very well be a Driver issue.  I have a Maxtor 80GB hard drive that is connected via Firewire to my PC right now and it is coming up like it should.

You may try to download updated drivers and if that doesn't work it could be how that device (Travelstar) is recognized by Windows 98.

Something else that may help you is searching on the IBM Travelstar forums to see if anybody else have had that issue in the past.

Regards,
David McGraw
You may also want to try connecting the drive directly to a port on the PC instead of through a hub;  I've run into occasions where removable storage devices don't always get detected, or don't get detected properly, when connected through a hub but do show up correctly when connected directly to a port on the PC.
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Avatar of bahjan

ASKER

Hi Chris,

Thought I was on a winner there.  I can create an 'Acronis Secure Zone' on a partition of my IBM Travelstar external drive BUT when I try to make a full backup - having selected the options I press 'Proceed' to begine - then Acronis asks me to 'Insert the first media'  ie seems to regard the Travelstar either sa a Jaz/Iomega drive of CR/ RW drive.  Any ideas??
Sorry. I think you need an Acronis expert, not a laptop expert.
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ASKER

The only thing I can say with certainty is that my problem was not a driver issue.
 
I split points as in their ways 'Rid' and Chris were both right.

As wriTten above, the first time I tried to make and Acronis Backup I got a request to 'insert first media' - I pressed 'Cancel'  but doing so seemed to do something to my reboot.  Post test bleep and little flashing cursor.  It seemed my Master boot Record was corrupted.

I restored the MBR by going to DOS and typing fdisk/mbr then pressing enter.
PLEASE NOTE:  BE VERY CAREFUL WITH FDISK FACILITY - DO NOT TYPE 'FDISK' THEN PRESS ENTER UNLESS YOU WANT TO REFORMAT YOUR HARD DISK!!!

Once the MBR restored - I tried another Acronis Backup and this time there was no 'Please insert First Media' meassage  - I was able to make a backup.  Windows 98se is still seeing my Travelstar as 'removable', (Rid was right) and carrying on seemed to eventually produce the desired result. (Chris was right).  I have no real idea why the MBR was corrupted, except that I stopped the Acronis Backup.
Odd but interesting. Thanks for the points.
/RID