Hard Drive Alive, But Windows XP Refuses to See It.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ryan
  • Start date Start date
R

Ryan

Hi,

I posted yesterday thinking the second hard drive in my PC had died
and asking for opinions.

Last night, I downloaded diagnostic software to look at the drive.
Sure enough, the drive is alive. The software was able to immediately
look at the drive and show me every folder and file that it is on it
as if nothing had happened. I even previewed some files and it appears
all the info is exactly where I left it.

However, Windows still says the drive is either "no accessable" or
"needs to be formatted" and refuses to use it or access it.

Now that I know the drive is not dead and the data is still there, I
am stumped as to how to proceed. What seems to be wrong? One night the
drive was fine, the next morning Windows claimed it didn't exist and
still refuses to let me use it.

Sorry, I have never had this happen to a drive and have no idea how to
proceed without accidently erasing the data that is there.
 
Ryan said:
Hi,

I posted yesterday thinking the second hard drive in my PC had died
and asking for opinions.

Last night, I downloaded diagnostic software to look at the drive.
Sure enough, the drive is alive. The software was able to immediately
look at the drive and show me every folder and file that it is on it
as if nothing had happened. I even previewed some files and it appears
all the info is exactly where I left it.

However, Windows still says the drive is either "no accessable" or
"needs to be formatted" and refuses to use it or access it.

Now that I know the drive is not dead and the data is still there, I
am stumped as to how to proceed. What seems to be wrong? One night the
drive was fine, the next morning Windows claimed it didn't exist and
still refuses to let me use it.

Sorry, I have never had this happen to a drive and have no idea how to
proceed without accidently erasing the data that is there.
Click to expand...

Here's what I'd do: Copy all the data to another drive or other backup
media. Make sure that's readable and accessible so you won't lose anything.

Run a checkdisk on that drive, and let Windows fix errors. If that doesn't
work, try deleting the partitions and/or formatting the drive and see if
Windows sees it.

For what it's worth, I had a drive that Windows XP would sporadically not
see properly, but Win 98 and all the drive utilities said it was fine. Until
it suddenly died. It's something to consider. XP is very finicky about
having good hardware.
 
Hi, Ryan.

Wow! FOUR identical posts!

What does Disk Management say about that HD?

RC
 
Hi,

I posted yesterday thinking the second hard drive in my PC had died
and asking for opinions.

Last night, I downloaded diagnostic software to look at the drive.
Sure enough, the drive is alive. The software was able to immediately
look at the drive and show me every folder and file that it is on it
as if nothing had happened. I even previewed some files and it appears
all the info is exactly where I left it.

However, Windows still says the drive is either "no accessable" or
"needs to be formatted" and refuses to use it or access it.
Click to expand...

At this juncture, I'd do a clone of that drive...just to be on the
safe side. Then try to fix the problem. If you screw up the save
process, you'll still have the original clone with all the data on it.
Now that I know the drive is not dead and the data is still there, I
am stumped as to how to proceed. What seems to be wrong? One night the
drive was fine, the next morning Windows claimed it didn't exist and
still refuses to let me use it.

Sorry, I have never had this happen to a drive and have no idea how to
proceed without accidently erasing the data that is there.
Click to expand...

Try re-lettering your optical drives...R for the ROM's...and W for the
writers...or whatever designation you want to use. But put them at
the end of the alphabet.


Have a nice one...

Trent

Budweiser: Helping ugly people have sex since 1876!
 
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