No drives show in My Computer

[Ray Parrish]

Hello,

I've asked this question before and gotten some answers none of which
worked, so I've waited a couple months and hope that someone may have
some new information at this point.

When I open My Computer the first page that shows is blank, no drives
show, Control Panel doesn't show, just a blank white page. I can access
any of my drives by dropping down the location list as the drives all
show there.

The File, Open dialogs for some programs also don't see the drives and
show only the Desktop folder.

I've tried to unhide the drives with TweakUI and that didn't work, and I
tried setting the registry entry that controls whether the drives show
with no joy resulting there either.

Does anyone have any idea why My Computer won't show my drives on it's
starting page?

Thanks, Ray Parrish

 

[Richard in AZ]

| Hello,
|
| I've asked this question before and gotten some answers none of which
| worked, so I've waited a couple months and hope that someone may have
| some new information at this point.
|
| When I open My Computer the first page that shows is blank, no drives
| show, Control Panel doesn't show, just a blank white page. I can access
| any of my drives by dropping down the location list as the drives all
| show there.
|
| The File, Open dialogs for some programs also don't see the drives and
| show only the Desktop folder.
|
| I've tried to unhide the drives with TweakUI and that didn't work, and I
| tried setting the registry entry that controls whether the drives show
| with no joy resulting there either.
|
| Does anyone have any idea why My Computer won't show my drives on it's
| starting page?
|
| Thanks, Ray Parrish
| --
| http://www.rayslinks.com/ Web index of human reviewed links.
| http://www.writingsoftheschizophrenic.com My poetry in web pages

What did you already try that did not work?
So that we don't offer that suggestion again?
You need to help us help you!

 

[Gerry]

Ray

It is difficult to visualise what is being displayed on your computer as
there so many ways Windows Explorer can be customised. Here's some
thoughts.

Are you seeing a left pane and a right pane in Windows Explorer?

In Windows Explorer select View, Explorer Bar, Folders. Does selecting
or deselecting make an improvement?

In Windows Explorer select Tools, Folder Options. On the Tasks tab have
you selected Show common tasks in Folder or Use Classic Windows Folders.
On the View tab under Advanced Settings there are a lot of settings,
which will affect what is displayed. One which may answer one of your
questions is Show Control Panel in My Computer. Is it checked?

Can you display the contents of Control Panel if you select Start,
Settings (not there on all computers), Control Panel?

When you first encountered your display problems was it after a malware
infestation? If yes this could mean you might need to go further than
make adjustments to how you have customised your Windows Explorer
settings.


--



Hope this helps.

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

 

[Ray Parrish]

Ray

It is difficult to visualise what is being displayed on your computer as
there so many ways Windows Explorer can be customised. Here's some
thoughts.

Are you seeing a left pane and a right pane in Windows Explorer?

Yes, the left pane has the My Documents folder displayed and the right
pane shows The subfolders to the My Documents folder. There are no
drives visible to select.

In Windows Explorer select View, Explorer Bar, Folders. Does selecting
or deselecting make an improvement?

No, it just shows the subfolders on the right and nothing on the left.

In Windows Explorer select Tools, Folder Options. On the Tasks tab have
you selected Show common tasks in Folder or Use Classic Windows Folders.
On the View tab under Advanced Settings there are a lot of settings,
which will affect what is displayed. One which may answer one of your
questions is Show Control Panel in My Computer. Is it checked?

I have "Show common tasks" selected. I check marked "Show control panel
in My Computer" and it still doesn't show.

Can you display the contents of Control Panel if you select Start,
Settings (not there on all computers), Control Panel?

I have My Computer on my taskbar as a toolbar menu and all drives show
there as well as Control Panel.

When you first encountered your display problems was it after a malware
infestation? If yes this could mean you might need to go further than
make adjustments to how you have customised your Windows Explorer
settings.

No, there has never been any malware on this machine. I keep the
antivirus updated and run a firewall.

 

[Ray Parrish]

Hello again,

I found and downloaded and installed the Group Policy Editor and have
used it to try to unhide the drives in My Computer. It took a while to
find the setting, I then disabled hiding the drives and started My
Computer and was once again greeted with a blank white page.

I haven't rebooted yet 'though so maybe after I reboot... who knows?

Later, Ray Parrish

 

[John John (MVP)]

By default Group Policies refresh at 90 minutes intervals, for user
policies (as opposed to machine policies) login the user off and back on
should force the new policies to be applied without actually rebooting
the machine. You can also manually force a Group Policy refresh without
a reboot or logoff with the gpupdate command, but I'm not sure that this
command is available on XP Home, I kind of doubt, try issuing the
command at a Command Prompt and see what happens.

John

 

[Gerry]

Ray

Is your computer single or dual booting? Have you used any third party
partition manager?

I would try a Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

--



Hope this helps.

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

 

[Ray Parrish]

Ray

Is your computer single or dual booting? Have you used any third party
partition manager?

I would try a Repair Install
http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

I'm a single booter so far, I'm thinking of adding Ubuntu to this
machine 'though.

I can't do a repair install as the only install disk that came with this
eMachine does a destructive install only, with no option for a repair
install.

Later, Ray Parrish

 

[Ray Parrish]

Hello,

The problem is finally solved! To fix it I had to install Group Policy
Editor, then set the setting for hiding drives in My Computer to the
opposite of what I wanted it to be, then setting it back to hide only
the A and B drives. After this it was necessary to reboot to see the change.

Now all of my drives show in My Computer and I'm once more happy with my
machine.

Later, Ray Parrish