Can't see Hard Drive.

[Marian Henna]

For some reason, I cannot see a 1TB hard disk in Vista Explorer. There are
no relevant messages in the event logs etc. I can save data to it (via apps,
word, excel, downloads etc).

I just cannot see it in windows when I go to my computer.

Also, can't seem to find anything pertinent on the web, lost about a vista
drive not being seen by windows 7 (vice versa), but not what I am looking
for.

My concern is that if Windows won't display the drive, it may be going bad
and it's only 6 months old.

Any pointer(s) would be appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[LVTravel]

For some reason, I cannot see a 1TB hard disk in Vista Explorer. There are
no relevant messages in the event logs etc. I can save data to it (via
apps, word, excel, downloads etc).

I just cannot see it in windows when I go to my computer.

Also, can't seem to find anything pertinent on the web, lost about a vista
drive not being seen by windows 7 (vice versa), but not what I am looking
for.

My concern is that if Windows won't display the drive, it may be going bad
and it's only 6 months old.

Any pointer(s) would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Right click Computer on the desktop. Click Manage then Disk Management. Do
you see the drive in either the top area under Volume or in the gray area
below it? If in the gray area does it have a drive letter assigned. If so
is it the same drive letter that is assigned to a network drive (which will
not show up in the Disk Management window?) If it is the same letter as a
network drive one or the other needs to be changed. Let us know and we can
guide you.

If the drive is not showing up at all in Disk Management I have no idea how
a program could write to the drive.

 

[Marian Henna]

My apologies, I should have mentioned that the drive is visible using Disk
Management. The volume is assigned the drive letter D: (basic volume) and
there are no network drives. The DVDRW is assigned drive letter W: (I do
this so that the universe knows it is a read(Writable.

I should have also mentioned that this drive was visible, but only in the
past few days has it disappeared (at least that's when I noticed).

System is Virus and Malware clean as reported by Panda RescueCD, Kaspersky
RescueCD and BitDefender RescueCD. I booted with my BartPE and ran McAfee
command line scanner against both hard disks in the system, they were both
clean.

TweakUI does nothing magical, I read a web hit that suggested running
TweakUI and 'clicking' on the drive and it should work - nada.

The only data on Drive D: (the invisible guy) is video data, nothing else. I
changed the drive letter to drive E: in DM and rebooted, still invisible.

I mentioned that I could store docs etc there, but they were only tests and
my dynamic data is never stored there.

Thanks

 

[LVTravel]

My apologies, I should have mentioned that the drive is visible using Disk
Management. The volume is assigned the drive letter D: (basic volume) and
there are no network drives. The DVDRW is assigned drive letter W: (I do
this so that the universe knows it is a read(Writable.

I should have also mentioned that this drive was visible, but only in the
past few days has it disappeared (at least that's when I noticed).

System is Virus and Malware clean as reported by Panda RescueCD, Kaspersky
RescueCD and BitDefender RescueCD. I booted with my BartPE and ran McAfee
command line scanner against both hard disks in the system, they were both
clean.

TweakUI does nothing magical, I read a web hit that suggested running
TweakUI and 'clicking' on the drive and it should work - nada.

The only data on Drive D: (the invisible guy) is video data, nothing else.
I changed the drive letter to drive E: in DM and rebooted, still
invisible.

I mentioned that I could store docs etc there, but they were only tests
and my dynamic data is never stored there.

Thanks

Any card readers installed on the computer, either in the computer or an
attached printer? Recently installed a printer and it rearranged my drive
letters until I changed the card reader that was on the printer to a
different letter.

You might want to read this article and see if it helps your situation:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles/39913.aspx

 

[Marian Henna]

Hello again, first let me thank you for your help.

I went over the article and confirmed everything in your link. All seems to
be fine. I have no card readers or anything new installed. What I'm going to
do is to review the most recent MS updates that may have been autoinstalled.

Normally I turn this off, but was preparing for a training course for 22
students for Vista and completely forgot. This is one of the items in the
link you sent me.

Next, I'll try a Sys-Restore, but I've installed about 55 videos and related
support apps for this upcoming session (which were all installed onto the
invisible drive), and will likely have to re-install. So fare the apps and
vids work fine, but I can't just copy to the drive via the GUI.

"I CAN", however copy and see the drive from a dos/command prompt. Hmmm...

Does this help?

I'll post more as it develops (or not develop).

Again, thanks.

 

[LVTravel]

Hello again, first let me thank you for your help.

I went over the article and confirmed everything in your link. All seems
to be fine. I have no card readers or anything new installed. What I'm
going to do is to review the most recent MS updates that may have been
autoinstalled.

Normally I turn this off, but was preparing for a training course for 22
students for Vista and completely forgot. This is one of the items in the
link you sent me.

Next, I'll try a Sys-Restore, but I've installed about 55 videos and
related support apps for this upcoming session (which were all installed
onto the invisible drive), and will likely have to re-install. So fare the
apps and vids work fine, but I can't just copy to the drive via the GUI.

"I CAN", however copy and see the drive from a dos/command prompt. Hmmm...

Does this help?

I'll post more as it develops (or not develop).

Again, thanks.

I see you mentioned, and I missed, in an earlier post that you have Tweak UI
installed and run. What version do you have and where did you get it? The
one for XP should NOT be run on Vista or Win 7.

 

[Marian Henna]

V2.10.0.0 for XP SP1 and Win2K3 is the one I had, I have downloaded the
Vista flavor, but no help. Thanks for the information as well.

I got to thinking again that the drive may be flakey, so this AM, I
installed it into another Vista machine and it displayed fine in Explorer.

Then thinking that the cable (power or data) were bad in the original
machine so I re-inserted the drive, swapped the cables around and same
thing. I then replaced the cables with brand new ones, same thing.

So it doesn't seem to be the drive, nor the cables.

The BIOS shows the drive correctly so it can't be the motherboard (or
interface). It's gotta be something in Vista.

Hmmm.

 

[LVTravel]

V2.10.0.0 for XP SP1 and Win2K3 is the one I had, I have downloaded the
Vista flavor, but no help. Thanks for the information as well.

I got to thinking again that the drive may be flakey, so this AM, I
installed it into another Vista machine and it displayed fine in Explorer.

Then thinking that the cable (power or data) were bad in the original
machine so I re-inserted the drive, swapped the cables around and same
thing. I then replaced the cables with brand new ones, same thing.

So it doesn't seem to be the drive, nor the cables.

The BIOS shows the drive correctly so it can't be the motherboard (or
interface). It's gotta be something in Vista.

Hmmm.

Have you totally uninstalled the XP TweakUI from the computer prior to
installing the Vista flavor one? If not uninstall both then
install/reinstall the one I recommend below.

I use Tweak VI free version from http://www.totalidea.com/download.php and
have been happy with that program. When installing allow it to create a
system restore point when it asks to. If running that program click the
System Information and Tweaks on the left side of the program's window then
Hard drive information, optimize hard... on the right side. In the new
window that opens click on the Hide disk drives / Hard drive tweaks tab.
Ensure that all the drive letters show a check mark next to them. Let me
know if any were turned off.