SATA Drive Not Recognized -- Second Whack

[Ray Woodcock]

Earlier, at http://tinyurl.com/5p7j8, I posted this message in this
newsgroup:

* * * * *

I have an SATA drive. Until yesterday, Windows XP recognized it as
just another drive in Windows Explorer. Now Explorer calls it "Local
Disk" and PartitionMagic reports it as "Unformatted."

I haven't changed anything in the configuration -- I was actually out
of town, and it did this when I returned, as soon as I turned the
machine on. The RAID array setup reports it as "Functional."

What's happening?

* * * * *

In response to that message, I received a couple of suggestions, but
no solutions.

I have no doubt that I could reformat the drive and resume working
with it. My concerns: (1) what about the data I had on there? and
(2) will this happen again?

Further research indicates that others have had similar problems. For
example, at http://tinyurl.com/5lj7c, Tony said, "Yesterday I had a
fully working 200Gb Maxtor diamondmax plus 9 sata drive.. Today it is
seen by Win Xp my computer but is reported as unformatted ..."

At http://tinyurl.com/4mm2e, Bob says, "I have been using xp for
months now with no problem until now. I have 2 hard disk drives. 1 WD
with NTFS and 1 Maxtor using FAT32. All of a sudden, Windows is not
recognizing my secondary Maxtor FAT32 drive. It shows as working
properly in Device Manager but when I try to populate it a message
says that the drive is not initialized."

In that same thread, BNM says, "I have added a SATA/USB/IEEE PCI card
which functions. I have installed a Samsung SATA Hard drive which is
recognised by the device manager but will not show up on My Computer
as a Drive."

Cari (MS-MVP) replied that Windows cannot see an unformatted drive.
On this detail, others disagree. In another thread (which, like all
except one of the above, including mine, involves an ASUS
motherboard), at http://tinyurl.com/5hxph, Ron says unformatted drives
can be seen within Windows, and DaveW says, "XP SP1 has the XP SATA
driver."

In my case and elsewhere, people asked whether the machines were
secure -- whether, that is, someone might be fiddling with the
machines to screw up drives. This was not an issue in my case, and
does not emerge as an issue in these other discussions that I am
reading.

In the last thread just cited, Tim speculated that possibly
permissions may have gotten reset on the disk, in such a way as to
exclude some users.

Several people advised looking into Device Manager. When I do that,
under Disk Drives, I see this disk, listed as Promise 1+0 Stripe/RAID0
SCSI Disk Device. Since that setting worked fine before, I don't
believe it is the problem.

People also mentioned using Disk Management. Disk Management sees
this drive as Drive H, Type Basic, no file system, Status Healthy,
100% free.

When I right-click (from within Disk Management) and choose Properties

Tools > Error-checking, and instruct the thing to fix file system

errors and attempt recovery of bad sectors, it finishes in a fraction
of a second.

 

[Nathan McNulty]

Also, I just have to ask if you have a microwave or anything that could
be considered magnetic near your computer. Even shaking or jaring can
cause problems. I would try this drive in another computer first to see
if it reads the HD properly. If not, then I would format (if you don't
need what was on it and have given up hope) and use it for trivial
purposes for a while to see if it is going to screw up again.

There are a lot of disk utilities include stuff that probably came with
your harddrive. What I think is that Partition Magic, also known as
Partition Tragic, may have messed it up. I haven't had very good luck
with Partition Magic or Norton Ghost and my SATA harddrive.

Nathan McNulty

 

[Ray Woodcock]

Nothing like a microwave near the machine. Business as usual;
computer layout hasn't changed. I don't think I've jarred the
machine, but it's possible. Another possibility: I don't think I had
any abrupt shutdowns, but, you know, maybe I did.

I appreciate the tip about Partition Magic. Didn't know people were
having problems with it. The last time I discussed it in a newsgroup,
which was probably a year or more ago, people were still saying good
things about it.

Using the drive for trivial purposes is good advice. That's what I'll
do.

Thanks again for trying to help me figure this one out.

Ray