MS- MVP - Please Help Hard Drive not seen in explorer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kristy
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Kristy

I recently reformatted my hard drive after getting a virus I
reinstalled XP with SP2 and tried to view my two drives. The c:
drive is a 200 GB and my other drive D: is a 500 GB. Both drives had
worked flawlessly. When I use windows explorer or My COMPUTER I cannot
see my D: drive. It shows in the BIOS and shows as a healthy basic
disc in the Computer Management Console. Here is a list of other
items I have checked. BTW motherboard is a ASUS P4PE but nothing was
changed.

* I ran the Hitachi DTA disk manager tools and there are no problems
with the drive.

* I installed all the drivers for the motherboard .

* I uninstalled the drivers and then reinstalled.

* Changed drives from Cable Select to Master and slave.

* I also use Doug Knox utility . NG

I am totally frustrated with this. I have used all my A+ and MCSE
knowledge but I am unable to solve this




Kristy
 
Have a look in device manager and see if it's been assigned a drive letter.
If not assign a drive letter for it.
 
Ricky said:
Have a look in device manager and see if it's been assigned a drive
letter. If not assign a drive letter for it.
Click to expand...


Kristy:
Ricky obviously meant "Disk Management" (Start > right-click My Computer >
Manage > Computer Management > Disk Management). Hopefully, you'll have an
option to assign a drive letter to that 500 GB HD.

If that option is grayed out...

1. Power off the computer and disconnect your 500 GB HD.
2. Boot with only your boot drive connected.
3. Shut down the machine and reconnect the secondary drive. Make absolutely
certain that it's connected/configured correctly, i.e., it's securely
connected to its IDE connector and it's correctly jumpered.
4. Boot the system with both drives connected. Hopefully, the system will
assign a drive letter to your secondary HD. If not, try the Disk Management
utility again.
Anna
 
Anna said:
Kristy:
Ricky obviously meant "Disk Management" (Start > right-click My Computer >
Manage > Computer Management > Disk Management). Hopefully, you'll have an
option to assign a drive letter to that 500 GB HD.

If that option is grayed out...

1. Power off the computer and disconnect your 500 GB HD.
2. Boot with only your boot drive connected.
3. Shut down the machine and reconnect the secondary drive. Make
absolutely certain that it's connected/configured correctly, i.e., it's
securely connected to its IDE connector and it's correctly jumpered.
4. Boot the system with both drives connected. Hopefully, the system will
assign a drive letter to your secondary HD. If not, try the Disk
Management utility again.
Anna
Click to expand...

Ooops..you're right Anna. I wasn't watching what I was typing.
 
IN the disk management console drive is lettered Drive D: with the ID
of Disk ID 1 in the upper part of the window it shows drive D:
formatted in NTFS and is healthy.

I also checked the cables, and the ID as I stated in previous post.
The drive was working fine and now it just can not be seen in Explorer
or my computer. It is not a motherboard problem nor a drive problem. I
even changed the CS select to drive master and slave and still have
the same problem.
 
Ricky said:
Have a look in device manager and see if it's been assigned a drive
letter. If not assign a drive letter for it.
Click to expand...


Kristy:
Ricky obviously meant "Disk Management" (Start > right-click My Computer >
Manage > Computer Management > Disk Management). Hopefully, you'll have an
option to assign a drive letter to that 500 GB HD.

If that option is grayed out...

1. Power off the computer and disconnect your 500 GB HD.
2. Boot with only your boot drive connected.
3. Shut down the machine and reconnect the secondary drive. Make absolutely
certain that it's connected/configured correctly, i.e., it's securely
connected to its IDE connector and it's correctly jumpered.
4. Boot the system with both drives connected. Hopefully, the system will
assign a drive letter to your secondary HD. If not, try the Disk Management
utility again.
Anna


Kristy said:
IN the disk management console drive is lettered Drive D: with the ID
of Disk ID 1 in the upper part of the window it shows drive D:
formatted in NTFS and is healthy.

I also checked the cables, and the ID as I stated in previous post.
The drive was working fine and now it just can not be seen in Explorer
or my computer. It is not a motherboard problem nor a drive problem. I
even changed the CS select to drive master and slave and still have
the same problem.
Click to expand...


Kristy:
Is there any possibility that you (or someone) used the TweakUI program or
some other third-party program to "hide" that D: drive?
Anna
 
Kristy said:
IN the disk management console drive is lettered Drive D: with the ID
of Disk ID 1 in the upper part of the window it shows drive D:
formatted in NTFS and is healthy.

I also checked the cables, and the ID as I stated in previous post.
The drive was working fine and now it just can not be seen in Explorer
or my computer. It is not a motherboard problem nor a drive problem. I
even changed the CS select to drive master and slave and still have
the same problem.
Click to expand...

so, only explorer can't see it..

go to disk management, right click D, and click explore. what happens?

maybe the partition is in some way hidden. Try deleting it and
recreating it.

Diskpart should do it. (though I only used that once, it's v intuitive)

could try pmagic too.
 
Anna


Kristy said:
No Tweakui use. Don't forget that this is a fresh install.
Click to expand...


Kristy:
Yes, I fully understand you performed a fresh install of the XP OS on your
200 GB HD and it was after that XP install that your 500 GB HD was & is not
detected in My Computer and Windows Explorer. That prior to that fresh
install, there was no problem in the system fully recognizing the secondary
drive.

I take it you've now connected the 500 GB HD as a Slave on the same IDE
channel as your boot drive, presumably the Primary IDE channel. Could you
connect it anywhere on the Secondary IDE channel and see how that works?
Master or Slave, it doesn't matter -- just make sure you've correctly
jumpered it.

If still no go, try re:connecting/configuring the drive as Cable Select on
the same IDE channel as your boot drive. Make sure you've connected the
middle connector on the IDE cable to your 500 GB HD.

If still no go, try connecting the drive Cable Select on the Secondary IDE
channel (as Master), making sure you use the end connector on the IDE cable
to connect to the drive.

Is there data on that problem HD that you can't afford to lose? If that's
*not* the case, what about using the Disk Management utility to delete the
present partition(s) on the drive and create new one(s) & format same?
Obviously if there's data on the drive you can't afford to lose, that's not
a viable option.

I'm assuming in all this that your boot drive is perfectly functional (with
the exception of this problem you've been having with the secondary HD);
that it boots without incident to the Desktop and that you've encountered no
problems of *any* kind involving your boot drive. That's correct, is it not?

BTW, what's the "Doug Knox utility" you mentioned, and what's its purpose?

Have you been to Maxtor's website to see if there's anything there that
might shed some light on your problem? Have you tried calling their tech
support - 1-800-262-9867?
Anna
 
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