Drive problem

What Drives

Questions:

1. are you talking CD/DVD ROMs, HDDs - what type of drives?
2. did you apply all of the XP updates through SP3?
3. if talking HDDs, do you have additional HDDs formatted in NT and inadvertently format the XP reinstall in FAT32?

Glad to help but I would need more info to avoid endless speculation.

Monk

 

You need to login to view this posts content.

 

Missing HDD

I prefer to start with some basics rather than assume this that or the other has been tried.

1. Did you check to make sure cables (power/drive) are connected? Check to be sure, especially if you were into the machine adding drives, etc.
2. Does the BIOS report the presence of your drives? If not enter the BIOS and have it autodetect (if that is an available option) your drives. Regardless of the format, the BIOS should detect the presence of the drives but not necessarily report the true capacity of drives. If the BIOS does not detect the presence of the drive, the drive/connections are at fault - assuming the BIOS/ROM did not suddenly become corrupted. That's another story altogether.
3. As previously mentioned did you inadvertently format the reinstallation of XP with FAT 32 v. NT and the other drive is NT? (FAT 32 cannot "see" NT formatted drives). To be sure, go to <START> -> CONTROL PANEL> -> <ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS> -> <COMPUTER MANAGEMENT> -> expand <STORAGE> if it is not already and click on <DISK MANAGEMENT>. In the right hand pane you will see a list of all of your drives. The upper section of the pane will give you specific disk information. It will also give you CD/DVD ROM info IF there is a CD or DVD in the tray. If the tray is empty, the upper window will not show the presence of the CD/DVD ROM drives. The bottom part of the pane will list all of the drives on your machine that XP is capable of reporting. It will also list the size and type of partitions of each drive.

Your boot drive (C:\ by default) will be listed as DISK 0 and the type and size of partitions will be listed; a second HDD would be listed as DISK 1 along with its partitions; Whether you have CD or DVD ROMS (or both) they will be listed as CD ROM 1, CD ROM 2, etc. If there is a disc in the tray, the size/status will be reported.

Let me stop here and ask you to report back because from here we go to "If the BIOS did this but XP did that then . . . . But if the BIOS did that and XP did this . . . ." Well, you get the picture.

What I am first and foremost looking for is - does the BIOS report the presence of the drive? Then, what does XP report via DISK MANAGEMENT.

Monk

 

If you haven't been inside your case recently or moved the computer then I wouldn't worry about cables. You could inadvertently make one loose while looking around. If the drives weren't being detected you would certainly need to check the cables, but since you have drive letters for them that means they're plugged in and are seen by the system.

It's a good idea to check the drives in Disk Management to see what type of partitions are detected (FAT32, NTFS, RAW, etc) See Monk's directions above. If it says NTFS try chkdsk. If it says anything else then you'll likely need to use data recovery software to get the files back. Running chkdsk on a FAT32 partition could convert your files to useless .chk files.

Of course if there isn't anything too important on the drives you can format them and start using them again, but once you do that there's no going back. You would no longer be able to recover the old things.

 

Drives won't open

Are you saying that in the MY COMPUTER or EXPLORER directory tree you see, say drive D:\ with a + next to it but when you click on the drive letter the tree does not expand?

If so, right click on the drive, then click on <PROPERTIES>. Is the drive size/used/available space, etc., what you expect? For example, if you install, format, and partition a second drive but the drive has no info on it, clicking on the drive letter will have no effect. It's like clicking on an empty directory (that sometimes has a plus sign next to it even though there are no subdirectories).

Just for clarification, I am not entirely sure what you mean when you say the drive "opens like an unknown file." Do you mean it opens like an unknown file-type and you get the dialog asking you to select a program to open the file with?

If you are familiar with the host of XP tools, I would still like more detailed and precise info on what you have done and not done regarding troubleshooting. What does <SYSTEM> report? Did you run <ERROR-CHECKING>, etc., etc.

Trust me, I'm not trying to be dismissive but to me - just to me - your are asking, "I have several shoes and after I cleaned out my closet, I can only find one shoe. What happened to the others?" The possibilities are legion!!

In the end, you ignored my previous questions and dribbled in more incomplete data. Under the circumstances, I am sorry to say that I cannot provide anything further that would serve you.

Monk

 

If you can access them by typing the drive letter into the address bar, but not by double clicking on it,then that is a problem with a registry key being missing or having incomplete information. It is a similar situation as if you had a file with an unknown extension or an extension missing the "Open" data. I have to go to work now, but I will try to find it for you later. Maybe HMonk or someone else can find it in the meantime. If we find it we can upload it for you and you can merge it with your registry.

 

You need to login to view this posts content.