Hidden Drive D:

[Dennis]

My new laptop came with a drive D: but I am not able to use it. It is a
"recovery console" that I can boot to for restoring my system to the factory
state. The D: drive has 18 gig of free space available and I would like to be
able to use the free space but not wipe out the recovery data. I can see D:
with my virus scanner, CyberScrub and with DOS. A DOS DIR command is how I know
it has 18 gig free space. The problem is I can't see the drive with windows
explorer or my other file utilities. How do I make my D: drive visible to
explorer?

Any help is appreciated.

Dennis

 

[Lance Joiner]

I have the same thing and it's locked so it can't be tampered with. It's
probably best to leave it alone.

 

[eric boyd]

There is a way to restore the visibility of your drive. I don't remember it
right now. Here's a work-around. make sure you've selected "View/Address
Bar" in explorer. Type "d:" in the address bar and hit enter. Your drive
will be visible temporarily until you close explorer.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

My new laptop came with a drive D: but I am not able to use it. It
is a "recovery console" that I can boot to for restoring my system to
the factory state. The D: drive has 18 gig of free space available
and I would like to be able to use the free space but not wipe out
the recovery data. I can see D: with my virus scanner, CyberScrub
and with DOS. A DOS DIR command is how I know it has 18 gig free
space. The problem is I can't see the drive with windows explorer or
my other file utilities. How do I make my D: drive visible to
explorer?

A recovery drive with 18GB free space?!
OMG!

 

[Dennis]

There is a way to restore the visibility of your drive. I don't remember it
right now. Here's a work-around. make sure you've selected "View/Address
Bar" in explorer. Type "d:" in the address bar and hit enter. Your drive
will be visible temporarily until you close explorer.

Thanks Eric this is a great start. I did what you suggested in explorer and it
worked. I also created a shortcut and placed it on my desktop so I can just
click to see D: I still can't get to it from my applications but at least I can
use it to store files. If you remember how I can get it to be a regular drive I
would appreciate it.

Dennis

 

[eric boyd]

Ok, here's what I know about it:

1) I use Ashampoo Power-up XP which contains a "Hide drive in My Computer"
option. I can turn on or off the hidden drives. You may have a similar
application blocking the visibility of your drive. This application just
accesses settings in XP that are difficult to find. The setting is supposed
to be available in XP under System Policies in Device Manager - but I can't
find it in my XP home addition.

2) Try updating your device driver for the drive under Device Manager in My
Computer. Also check to make sure the device is enabled and that there are
no yellow exclamation point errors associated with the drive.

3) Microsoft offers that the solution to the problem is to update to the
latest service pak on Windows Update. (I don't believe this will work, but
it's what they say to do.)

4) Try uninstalling the drive in Device Manager, rebooting and then using
Scan for Hardware Changes in Device Manager to reinstall the drive.

5) In the end I might try using Microsoft's online help. Describe the
problem and see if they email a solution back to you. Please post their
solution if they come up with one.

Beyond these suggestions, all of which I have only 50% confidence, we need
someone smarter than me to solve the issue.

 

[Dennis]

Thanks again for your help Eric. The Ashampoo utility didn't help. Whether I
had it set for hide or not the drive was hidden. I looked for a new device
driver but I already had the most current. Something in windows is preventing
normal access to the drive. I'll keep plugging away at it and post the answer
if I ever get it to work correctly. You wouldn't think that just wanting to use
the disk space I paid for would be such a big deal.

Dennis