No letter assignment to my hard drive

[Guest]

Hi,

I have reinstall Windows XP SP2 and my second hard drive isn’t
recognized/detected by Windows. This drive is used for storing data. Note
that if I install this drive on another computer running XP, it is detected
and recognized by the other computer and all my data is usable.

However, despite the fact Windows Explorer can’t detect my second hard
drive, I can view it when I use the Disk Management Tool. All the properties
of my “C†drive are present and its STATUS shows: Healthy (System); my second
drive has no letter assigned beside its icon, and its STATUS display: Healthy
(Active). Both drive use NTFS.

What can I do to access my second hard drive without repartitioning it and
losing all my data?

 

[Rock]

Hi,

I have reinstall Windows XP SP2 and my second hard drive isn’t
recognized/detected by Windows. This drive is used for storing data. Note
that if I install this drive on another computer running XP, it is
detected
and recognized by the other computer and all my data is usable.

However, despite the fact Windows Explorer can’t detect my second hard
drive, I can view it when I use the Disk Management Tool. All the
properties
of my “C†drive are present and its STATUS shows: Healthy (System); my
second
drive has no letter assigned beside its icon, and its STATUS display:
Healthy
(Active). Both drive use NTFS.

What can I do to access my second hard drive without repartitioning it and
losing all my data?

Right click on it in Disk Management and assign a drive letter.

 

[Guest]

Go back into disk management, right click on drive and assign it a drive
letter.

 

[Guest]

What can I do to access my second hard drive without repartitioning it and
losing all my data?

For an unknown reason, shortly after I sent my email, CHKDSK launched after
a system restart. Then, an only then, I was able to assign a drive letter to
my HD using disk management.

Since then however, CHKDSK runs every time my system starts.

What can I do to stop this?

Thanks

 

[Nobody]

1. Can't detect Hard Drive
2. Can't assign Drive Letter
3. ChkDsk Running all the time

Your hard drive does not sound too healthy.

If your hard drive starts to act really weird,
you should get the Manufacturers Disk Diagnostic Utility.
Run that to be sure your hard disk is still ok.

So many people have lost data messing around when
the hard drive starts to act flaky like that.

You'll have to make a CD and boot up off the CD
to run the diagnostic utilities.

Better safe than sorry.


HTH,

 

[Rock]

What can I do to access my second hard drive without repartitioning it and
losing all my data?

For an unknown reason, shortly after I sent my email, CHKDSK launched
after
a system restart. Then, an only then, I was able to assign a drive letter
to
my HD using disk management.

Since then however, CHKDSK runs every time my system starts.

What can I do to stop this?

Can you access all the data on that drive? If so make sure you have a
backup of the data. This should be a given at all times, but be aware that
in some cases chkdsk can cause data corruption which cannot be recovered.

As to stopping this from happening, something is setting the dirty bit on
the drive. When XP starts it queries all volumes to see if the dirty bit is
set. If it is, then it automatically runs chkdsk /f. If it can correct the
problems it unsets the dirty bit. So the fact that chkdsk runs at each boot
could mean chkdsk can't fix the problems and doesn't unset the dirty bit, or
it get's set for some reason when XP is run.

MVP Wesley Vogel has a great post with much detail about this issue of
chkdsk running at boot. Search for one of his posts,. Here is one reference
with troubleshooting tips.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm
Click and "C" and scroll to "Check Disk - Disk Checking Runs Upon Boot"

One thing you should do is download a drive diagnostic utility from the
drive manufacturer's web site. That will create a bootable floppy or CD.
Boot from that and run the diagnostics on the drive.

 

[Guest]

Hi,

Note that I have solved the problem. Despite the fact that both of my Hds
were jumpered to CS and my drives properly connected to the controller, I
jumpered my slave drive to SLAVE and it fix my problem.

Thanks for your support/help with my request.

 

[Rock]

Hi,

Note that I have solved the problem. Despite the fact that both of my Hds
were jumpered to CS and my drives properly connected to the controller, I
jumpered my slave drive to SLAVE and it fix my problem.

Thanks for your support/help with my request.

Interesting, thanks for posting back the outcome.

 

[ikaros1]

Did you leave the primary drive as CS?

Hi,

Note that I have solved the problem. Despite the fact that both of my Hds
were jumpered to CS and my drives properly connected to the controller, I
jumpered my slave drive to SLAVE and it fix my problem.

Thanks for your support/help with my request.