Hard disk not visible in Explorer

[henkc]

I have 2 hard disks installed on my desktop: C for programs and D for data.
Both are NTFS formatted. OS is W-XP. Recently this D-drive is not visible
anymore through Explorer, so I cannot access this drive. The BIOS does
recognize the D-drive. Any suggestions what I could do?

 

[Gerry]

TweakUi might be worth a try.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

In TweakUi select My Computer, Drives option. Are the boxes before your
C and D drives checked?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Olórin]

I have 2 hard disks installed on my desktop: C for programs and D for
data.
Both are NTFS formatted. OS is W-XP. Recently this D-drive is not visible
anymore through Explorer, so I cannot access this drive. The BIOS does
recognize the D-drive. Any suggestions what I could do?

If the BIOS doesn't see it, there's no point in fiddling around in Windows.
If it (the BIOS) has an auto-detect facility, give that a shot. If it still
doesn't see it, open up your machine and check the physical connections
between HDD and motherboard. Even if they *look* okay, remove and re-seat
them. With the case open, try again and touch the second drive (in a safe
place!) and feel for the vibration of the platters spinning up. If possible,
try removing this drive and adding it as a slave to a spare machine, see if
you get any joy that way.

Also, you might want to check Event Logs for any clues (Start > Run >
eventvwr.msc).

As it's got your data on, I hope you've got a sound back-up policy in place!

 

[henkc]

TweakUi might be worth a try.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

In TweakUi select My Computer, Drives option. Are the boxes before your
C and D drives checked?

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Both C and D boxes are checked. The D drive bears a questionmark

 

[henkc]

If the BIOS doesn't see it, there's no point in fiddling around in Windows.
If it (the BIOS) has an auto-detect facility, give that a shot. If it still
doesn't see it, open up your machine and check the physical connections
between HDD and motherboard. Even if they *look* okay, remove and re-seat
them. With the case open, try again and touch the second drive (in a safe
place!) and feel for the vibration of the platters spinning up. If possible,
try removing this drive and adding it as a slave to a spare machine, see if
you get any joy that way.

Also, you might want to check Event Logs for any clues (Start > Run >
eventvwr.msc).

As it's got your data on, I hope you've got a sound back-up policy in place!


The Bios sees he D drive. I had already taken out the drive, it turns smoothly, no vibrations. Event Logs shows many, could it be: "CI has started for catalog c:\system volume information\catalog.wci. For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp."? Yes, I have 2 back-ups of Drive D, 1 day old, thanks for this policy.

 

[Gerry]

Another way to investigate your hard drive is to use HD Tune.

Try HD Tune only gives information and does not fix any
problems.

Download and run it and see what it turns up. You want HD Tune
(freeware) version 2.55 not HD Tune Pro (not Freeware) version 3.00.
http://www.hdtune.com/

Select the Info tabs and place the cursor on the drive under Drive
letter and then double click the two page icon ( copy to Clipboard )
and copy into a further message.

Select the Health tab and then double click the two page icon ( copy to
Clipboard ) and copy into a further message. Make sure you do a full
surface scan with HD Tune.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Olórin]

Sorry; I managed to misread "The BIOS does recognize the D-drive" as "The
BIOS does not recognize the D-drive." Mea culpa.

 

[Lil' Dave]

I have 2 hard disks installed on my desktop: C for programs and D for
data.
Both are NTFS formatted. OS is W-XP. Recently this D-drive is not visible
anymore through Explorer, so I cannot access this drive. The BIOS does
recognize the D-drive. Any suggestions what I could do?

I do not know the answer to your question. For novice readers, the bios
examines a physical hard drive and determines the hard drive's geometric
layout. The bios routine may return the results of the firmware
communication by presenting that in the bios routine results after examining
the hard drive. The result will be gibberish text form of the hard drive
make and model.

Windows Explorer looks at partitions (cleverly named "drives" by Microsoft).
In simplest terms, a partition is portion or all of the hard drive where the
file system resides. Windows examines this filesystem to see the contents
of the "drive". Windows cannot "see" a physical hard drive itself. The
problem here is windows explorer cannot find the partition's filesystem for
interpretation of its contents.

I will comment regarding the problem that sometimes when a partition is
NTFS, there may exist user restrictions preventing windows explorer from
"seeing" a "drive"/partition.