Removable storage not showing, help

I installed a new SATA HD and partitioned it, seems ok to me but all the
removable storage devices (except floppy and Zip Drive) does not show icons
in the "My Computer" screen or the explorer screen.

Before installing the new HD, I re-assigned letters to the Zip, DVD and CDRW
to be W, X, Y (dont know if they showed up or not). After installation,
formatting and partitioning I re-assigned them to the next letter in the chain
(K, L, M).

The removable devices (L and M) only show in the Disk Management table
but they show as healthy and even with a CD in the drives, they dont show.

Here is the new letter assignments:
1st SATA HD:
C, Primary
D, Logical
E, Logical
F, Logical

2nd SATA HD:
G, Logical
H, Logical
I, Logical
J, Logical

ZIP Drive = K - Shows OK.

Don't show except in disk management:
DVD = L
CDRW = M

So, essentially, i have no access to the DVD/CD drives.
I'm lost as to what to do to try and fix this and could use some guidance.

thanks,
savagcl

 

I had this problem a while back with my extermal Maxtor USB2 drive not showing up, except in disk management. Problem is I can't remember the sequence of events to cure it. It happened I think in W2K3, but as W2K3 is similar to XP I'll give you a couple of suggestions to try, in no particular order.

Delete any shortcuts and then remove from the device manager. Power off the box. Restart and see if they are detected and installed, recreate the shortcuts from within My Computer.

Go into Disk Management and right click the drives and try deleting them. (carefull not to go near your system drive ) Try changing the drive letters for both in there. See if this helps, and any combination of the above may be worth a try?

HTH?

 

Paul,

I tried changing the dvd/cd assignments to X and Y. No good.

I'll try removing them from device manager, thanks for the tip.
I will post here if it works or not.

savagcl

 

NoGo., Paul.

I uninstalled both DVD/CD in device manager and powered off the sys.
During bootup, windows said it found both of them and installed them.
Then it told me to reboot to finish the installation. I did.
Then looking at My Computer (and Explorer), they didn't show.

Additional note: I also have a USB external HD, when i plugged it in, it didnt
show either.

Looking for more suggestions.

My system:
Wasp Motherboard
3.0GHZ 800MHz FSB P4 NORTHWOOD HYPER THREADING PROCESSOR
Memory: 1024MB Memory Module
160GB SATA Hard Drive (C,D,E,F)
200GB SATA Hard Drive (G,H,I,J)
18 LCD Flat Panel Display
128MB NVIDIA GEFORCE4 TI4200 (X) - not showing
DVD-RAM/-R/-RW/CDRW Recorder (Y) - not showing
TDK CD-RW: 52/24/48
SB Audigy2 ZS w\front panel
Boston Acoustics BA7900 5.1 Speakers (5 + Boombox)
Multifunction PS2 Keyboard
Logitec USB Optical Mouse
Floppy ID Drive (A)
Zip Drive (K)
120Gig External Hard Drive (Smartdrive).

thank you,
savagcl

 

Often people install TweakUI and don't bother to check the boxes next to all the drive letters since it seems trivial at the time. But later, those drive letters don't appear in My Computer.

 

Abraxas,

Yep, that was it.
I had just remembered that there was a checkbox list of usable drives
somewhere!
Spent the last hour trying to find that checkbox listing of drives and banging
my head because i couldn't remember where i had seen it.
Suddenly a lightbulb went off over my head - TweakUI!!!!!!!!!!!

Went there, put in some more checks and WALAA! They all showed up.

Knowledge is important but knowing where you got that knowledge is just as
important.

Ok, I got a headache, time for sleep.

Thanks a lot, Guys, I appreciate the help,
savagcl

 

LOL.

I don't know how many times I've seen that one. People always tend to assume that there is soimething more serious wrong than there really is.

But then most people feel to ashamed to come back and admit that they missed that one.

Congratulations for your courage and your finding the solution.

 

Yes, exactly. I was thinking of a conflict between Partition Magic and the
Acronis disk backup. Since Acronis will create a "unknown partition" where you
want it to and i had put mine at the end of drive "F ". So i thought maybe it was
breaking the chain of assignments, like skipping a partition and winXP was
getting confused. But not the case at all.

Of course, being 65 years old (and the mileage is much higher) dont help much
in the memory department (mine, that is, not the system).

Now for a new, heavier, power supply and then a new graphics card and i
should be set for, oh, at least 6 months.

Thanks for the help and have a good one,
savagcl

BTW: Is there a way to get the smilies to show within the body of a msg and
not at the top always?

 

Certainly.

 

Got it, thanks.

Must get my glasses adjusted - again.


savagcl