"D Drive" partition suddenly gone

Hi guys, today I have done three things:

- Installed Corel Ventura
- Attempted to install and then uninstalled Nokia Data Cable
- Installed a new fan in my box


I don't recall at exactly which point the problem started, but there is now a red/white question mark over the shortcut to my D partition and in Windows Explorer it simply doesn't exist.

Before installing Ventura I set restore point and I've tried to go back to that point but received this message which quite frankly confuses me:

"Changes made to drive d after this point cannot be reversed because the drive was either excluded from system restore monitoring or was turned off or removed."

I don't know whether this means I can retrieve the drive or not.

Grateful if anyone can advise how I can reverse this problem.

Thanks in advance,
Jo

 

Since you mentioned you were in the case replacing a fan, I would suggest re-seating the cables to your drives.
You may have knocked a cable loose.


Which OS are you running?
How many actual physical drives do you have?
What shows up in the disk manager? Unallocated space or nothing at all?

 

Thanks for reply Mron.

I have one physical drive with three partitions. You'd never even know that D existed except for the question mark over the shortcut. No exclamation marks appear in device manager. Nothing appears in WIndows Explorer.

When I installed the fan I must have plugged something in incorrectly at some point because when I turned the PC back on I got terrible error messages after an attempt by the PC to load WIn2000 (I have WinXP). I turned it all off again and plugged it in correctly and all went as it should. (It was slightly complicated because I had to use a double-headed adapter so there were many options for plugs and sockets).

Thanks for your help.

Jo

 

Boppy,

Glad you got it sorted out. We were posting at the same time. You don't need my two cents... so just disregard this post.

B

 

Hello Boppy,

That message means that partition D isn't being monitored by System Restore.

My Computer > Properties > System Restore tab and look at what's being monitored.

Not a good idea to monitor non OS partitions, just in case you're tempted. Backing up the contents is what should be done.

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks Charles and Mr B.

If I go back to a previous restore point, do you think there's any likelihood of my D partition returning? If this has been caused by me knocking a cable, or replacing it in the wrong slot, then I presume not.

System Restore is currently monitoring C (hard drive) and E (partition). I would guess that it used to monitor D up until yesterday.

Jo

 

What shows up in the disk manager? Unallocated space or nothing at all for the second partition (or D?

Start>Run>diskmgmt.msc

 

Hi Jo,

Try it, although I don't think it would bring the partition back, but we may all be supprised. It really depends on what happened.

Do look at the drive thru diskmgmt and post back.

Regards - Charles

 

Hi again guys, nothing relating to D shows up in Disk Management. I can pretty much live without the contents of the partition for now. I'm sure the problem was caused by my knocking something when I installed the system fan, but I can wait to get this fixed next time something serious goes wrong.

Thanks for your help.

Jo

 

Fixed

Hi guys, just reporting back ... I had a major problem with my CD drive killing my machine last night so had to call a tech. He discovered the partition problem had been caused by my new fan being connected by a faulty (and also new) power adapter cable. He took it out and hey presto, there was my D partition.

Cheers,
Jo