harddisk disappears

[Sjoerd]

Hi,

I have two physical harddrives which until last week always worked
perfectly. Since last week, after rebooting, my second harddisk (with my
documents on it) is lost. When I go to Device Manager and Scan for Hardware
Changes, immediately the second harddisk pops up and works againg. However,
after rebooting I have to go through this again. In other words, windows
does not seem to 'save' this configuration.

This problem started after installing my Sitecom USB-IrDA Adapter, but
uninstalling won't help anymore. I deleted all USB controllers in the device
manager, and after reboot (and then automatically installing the drivers),
my harddisk worked correctly. However, after second reboot it would not work
anymore.

What is going on, and how can I solve this?

Sjoerd

 

[Sjoerd]

Hi,

I have two physical harddrives which until last week always worked
perfectly. Since last week, after rebooting, my second harddisk (with my
documents on it) is lost. When I go to Device Manager and Scan for
Hardware Changes, immediately the second harddisk pops up and works
againg. However, after rebooting I have to go through this again. In other
words, windows does not seem to 'save' this configuration.

This problem started after installing my Sitecom USB-IrDA Adapter, but
uninstalling won't help anymore. I deleted all USB controllers in the
device manager, and after reboot (and then automatically installing the
drivers), my harddisk worked correctly. However, after second reboot it
would not work anymore.

What is going on, and how can I solve this?

Sjoerd

I am mistaken: uninstalling the IrDA adapter does solve the problem.
Question still is: how can I use the adapter without loosing my harddisk?
When everything is configured manually, until the next reboot everything
works. I suppose it should be possible to make it work permanently, question
is how?

 

[Guest]

2 physical hds,IDE or SATA....Or both....Either way,ever install a chipset
installation
utility for the boards controllers...If the MB is intel based,go to
intel.com/downloads
/chipset/software/locate the utility for youre boards chipset,or,locate an
intel MB
that uses the same,locate the utility thru its downloads....Also,depending
on how
old the MB is,all intel based chipsets to 850,also use the application
accellerator
v2.3 That gets youre hd controllers drivers...

 

[SM]

Hmm this morning the harddisk did not show up again: this means that the
cause wasn't after all the IrDA adapter. What else could be the case? Right
now I'm thinking that maybe it is a hardware issue, because apparently the
problem occurs at random...

They both are IDE, btw. I will have a look at the chipset installation
utility. Any other ideas?

 

[Paul Eaton]

im experiencing the same problem as we speak. it seems its caused me a
faulty drive.
i got this problem just today after rebooting a machine from xp to vista.
these drives were also working before i unhooked them. i booted back to xp
pro and am installing the sp2 pack now then on restart ill plug the 2 drives
back in. if it works under xp then id have to say the drives are to old for
a vista configuration. if they dont work. then my faulty drive thoughts
remain.

 

[SM]

im experiencing the same problem as we speak. it seems its caused me a
faulty drive.
i got this problem just today after rebooting a machine from xp to vista.
these drives were also working before i unhooked them. i booted back to xp
pro and am installing the sp2 pack now then on restart ill plug the 2
drives back in. if it works under xp then id have to say the drives are
to old for a vista configuration. if they dont work. then my faulty drive
thoughts remain.

Hmm I don't think that a faulty drive causes the issue. After all, my
harddisk seems to do its job every time I want him to: when I scan for new
hardware, the disk is ALWAYS found and never gives errors. The problem seems
to be either windows or some strange motherboard-thing.

I noticed some strange BIOS-behaviour: when I mark the secondary harddisk
(slave on IDE1) as 'not installed', windows still can detect the drive when
I search for it. Is this bug or feature? (K7S41GX mobo)

Also, I've noticed that the problem sometimes does not occur: several times
I boot into windows and the drive does work, however I'd say 60% of the time
it doesn't. Restarting or a fresh morning-boot don't make a difference. I
now use 'hibernate' a lot, that way the harddisk does not disappear when
restarting.

I would be glad if someone could give the final solution or shed light on
this problem. Meanwhile, I will remove the harddisk completely and fiddle
with the windows configuration and then plug the harddisk back in.
Sjoerd

 

[SM]

I would be glad if someone could give the final solution or shed light on

this problem. Meanwhile, I will remove the harddisk completely and fiddle
with the windows configuration and then plug the harddisk back in.
Sjoerd

Well, I physically removed the harddisk after an uninstall via device
manager. Rebooted, shutted down and reattached the harddisk. Windows
immediately found it and installed it while showing a yellow pop-up in the
right hand corner. After rebooting the same problem: no secondary harddisk
until I went trough the 'add hardware' process via device manager. Grrr.

 

[SM]

Well, I physically removed the harddisk after an uninstall via device
manager. Rebooted, shutted down and reattached the harddisk. Windows
immediately found it and installed it while showing a yellow pop-up in the
right hand corner. After rebooting the same problem: no secondary harddisk
until I went trough the 'add hardware' process via device manager. Grrr.

My problem is finally solved. It was very easy. I just opened device
manager, and uninstalled everything under the header 'IDE ATA/ATAPI
controllers' (Primary and secondary IDE-channel and the 'SiS PCI IDE
Controller'). Rebooted, and windows reinstalled it again. Again rebooted and
problem SOLVED.