Error: "Drive X: may not be configured properly" when running Norton Disk Doctor or Speed Disk

Document ID:19961111153952
Last Modified:03/05/2002

Error: "Drive X: may not be configured properly" when running Norton Disk Doctor or Speed Disk

Situation:
Norton Disk Doctor or Speed Disk display one or both of the following errors:

- Drive X: may not be configured properly.
- Drive X: may not be configured correctly. Norton Disk Doctor cannot continue testing this drive.

The program stops responding. Note that the drive letter in question may be other than C:.

Solution:
NOTE: If you are seeing this error message, and you have Norton Personal Firewall 2002 installed, see the document Error: "Drive C: may not be configured correctly" when running Disk Doctor or Speed Disk after installing Norton Personal Firewall 2002.

Explanation
The partition table of the hard drive is not strictly following the DOS standards. If the drive is incorrectly configured, Norton Disk Doctor will display the same messages when it is run from Safe Mode or DOS.

There are two situations that cause this error:

Incorrectly configured hard drive
FAT32X partitions with old BIOS

Incorrectly configured hard drive
If this error appears in both Windows Normal Mode and Windows Safe Mode, it is likely the drive is not configured correctly. An error may have occurred when the hard drive was configured. Disk Doctor and Speed Disk will not run when they detect these types of errors to prevent damage to data on the drive.

Solution - Use the FDISK program to check for correct configuration of the hard drive. See "Using FDISK to check a drive" later in this document.

If the drive is not configured correctly, you will need to reconfigure it (which probably includes repartitioning it) before Norton Disk Doctor and Speed Disk will run. See the section that follows regarding reconfiguring hard drives.

FAT32X partitions with old BIOS
If the computer is using FAT32 extended partitions, there may be an incompatibility between the hardware and Windows 95 build 4.00.950b or later. Check with the computer manufacturer for a BIOS upgrade, and check with the hard drive manufacturer for a firmware update.

Using FDISK to check a drive
Follow these steps to use FDISK to check whether the drive is configured correctly:

From any DOS prompt, type FDISK.
Choose Display Partition Information.
Each logical partition (for example. C: or D:) is listed in the table. Add the megabytes listed for each to arrive at a total for the logical partitions.
Compare this total to the figure shown for Total Disk Space.
If these figures do not match (by more than a couple of megabytes) then the drive is most likely not configured correctly. If the total size of the logical partitions is slightly smaller than the Total Disk Space (by 1 or 2 megabytes), the drive is probably configured correctly.

Checking for proper drive configuration
Part of the installation of a hard drive includes enabling sector translation (such as Logical Block Addressing) and creating logical partitions, like C: and D:. If either of these steps were skipped or done incorrectly, the hard drive setup is incorrect, and the errors described earlier may result.

Here are some points to check for proper configuration:

Check for Logical Block Addressing (LBA) in the BIOS. It may have been inappropriately turned on or off.
Make sure the BIOS settings are correct for the drive, and consistent with the values in the partition table.
Compare the Legal Values (for example, the values DOS sees) with the partition table. Refer to the document How to diagnose hard drive bootup problems with Disk Editor.

For more information on hard drive configuration, see the document How to check hard drive configuration.

Reconfiguring the Utilities for drives larger than 8 GB
If you have verified that the drive is configured correctly, you can set Norton Utilities versions to skip the part of the test that displays the "Drive X: may not be properly configured" message.

Caution:
Using this method on an incorrectly configured hard disk can prevent Norton Disk Doctor from detecting problems. Using an incorrectly configured hard disk can cause data loss.

To prevent the message and allow Norton Disk Doctor and Speed Disk to complete, run NDD.EXE and NDD32.EXE with the /NOLBA switch.

Alternately, you can set a key in the Registry to do the same thing. To force Norton Disk Doctor and Speed Disk to always skip the drive configuration check, add a DWORD registry value named NOLBACHECK at this location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Symantec\Norton Utilities

When this option is set to 1, Norton Disk Doctor and Speed Disk skip the drive configuration check.

You can download NOLBACHK.REG, a registry file that adds this key for you, from the following location:
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/products/norton_utilities/ver3_win95/updates/nolbachk.reg

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Product(s): Norton Utilities 2000 v4.5 - Win95/98, Norton Utilities 2001 v5.0 - Win9x/Me, Norton Utilities 2001 v5.0 - WinNT/2000, Norton Utilities 2002 v6.0 - Win98/Me, Norton Utilities 2002 v6.0 - WinNT/2000/XP
Operating System(s): Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows NT
Date Created: 11/11/1996