Resolved DiskManagement doesn't show HDD 0

Hi All,

The title says it all ,but there's more to it
This is a weird one and something for someone who knows his "stuff ".

Specs: WDC 160 GB HDD on generic box with XP Pro SP2
The system has 2 harddrives - drive 0 and drive 1, each with 3 partitioms,
some bootable and some just storage, with HDD 0 part.1 as the boot partition.

After booting up yesterday ,I had to do a quick check in DiskManagement and did it from drive C:\
and noticed HDD 0 did not show., only HDD 1 was listed.

This is what I found:HDD 0 does NOT show in
DiskManagement, Device Manager and via msinfo32.exe.

It DOES show however in My Computer (Explorer) and navigating anywhere
with other file managers.
It also shows from other partitions.
It also shows using other programs like Partion managers, backup software,
whether native NT backup or 3rd party,like Macrium ,Easeus etc
Windows Defrag shows the drive as do other defraggers.
AV and anti-malware programs show the drive as well -all 3 partitions
WDC Lifeguard Diagnostics reports both drives as healthy AND shows both.

There are no problems booting from C:\ or E:\ (the other bootable part. on HDD 0)

So the question is ,where do the 3 utilities that DON'T show the drive, get their info? and how do I correct this?

Rescan hardddisks in DeviceManager did not help.

Thanks in advance for any insight into this.

Pete.

 

In Device Manager, uninstall the controllers under the heading IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers. If the drive does not start "working" again correctly, find updated drivers for the SATA/IDE controllers at the motherboard/system manufacturer's website (don't just do Update Drivers in Device Manager). The drivers are often bundled in the chipset drivers.

Is it a nVidia chipset? If so, when you install the drivers choose not to install the IDE controller drivers, they have been quite problematic. In fact, check in Add/Remove Programs for the nVidia IDE drivers and I suggest you uninstall them. The system will use the Windows IDE drivers.

Let us know your system details and look at putting them in your WindowsBBS user profile.
http://www.windowsbbs.com/adding_system_specifications.html

Matt

 

Hi Matt,
Thanks for your reply on this.
I'm a bit reluctant to fool around with the drivers.
Several reasons:1.Everything else is working properly.
2.So far as I know the latest drivers for this mobo are installed,but will
double check on that. (mobo is fairly old Intel 845GEBV2) so only Intel chipset.
3.Only IDE drives in this box.

I will compare drivers used in the other bootable partitions on this system
which report the drive properly.

Even before I posted my query, I wasn't sure if to post it under hardware.
I believe it's a software- or rather a registry problem.

It seemed to have cropped up after a scan with MBAM,but not sure.
To be honest,I hate a lot of scanners,including registry cleaners.
Unless you scrutinize everything they flag ,you might lose valuable stuff.
Eg. just ran MBAM again and it flagged all of Avira's AV files plus a lot of other innocent files I have had for years without problems and which I installed on this box.

Anyway,to come back to problem at hand - I think some entries were removed in the registry, because if you look at it, all other diagnostic programs etc, report HDD 0 being present.
It's only the 3 Windows utilties that can't "detect" the drive.

Hence my question - where do they get their info from?
Conversely, where do the other programs get their info?
My point is ,that they gather it from different parts of the Registry.
DiskManagement e.g. seems to read certain Registry keys (supposedly missing now) which are different from the ones that the other programs read and correctly report the "missing" drive.

Reason I didn't put full specs of this system in my profile, is because it's not my main system.Correction - I don't really have a main system.I use a collection of machines ,often just running a live CD -no internal drives -with a USB drive for storage.
So it's hard to pin me down on a true hardware profile and listing it is actually
irrelevant to most of my questions nor would it be accurate.
Hope you understand.I know the "Board" likes to see a profile,
but I'm afraid "I don't fit into that box ".

Pete.

 

OK Pete, but try to supply as much relevant information about the system as you can, so that we don't have to ask and wait for a reply (and wonder if it was relevant to our answer, like what I said about the nVidia controller). If you get an information list for a system, why not save it somewhere so you can paste it into any further threads.

I never use registry cleaners. I would either look in the program (MBAM) to reverse the changes or look at doing a System Restore to back before the changes were made.

I don't think the registry should be involved, although I expect Windows might require it more than a third party program.

Uninstalling the IDE controller should reset it. It is an automatic reinstall. If it happens that Windows asks for the correct drivers when you reboot, you will know that there is something wrong with them and you will need to source the correct ones.

Matt

 

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your reply.
Sorry for the delay in answering, but I ran into a few problems.

I did un-install the IDE controller ,but it made no difference.
The only drive that shows is the 120 GB secondary drive HDD 1.
Tried a different version that was supposed to work with this mobo,
but it crashed the system on bootup,so I reverted to the original Intel -M$ signed driver.

Doing a system restore is not possible anymore.
Since I'm convinced that it is a registry problem and appeared suddenly,
it crossed my mind that maybe malware was involved.
Against my better judgment I ran MBAM again, I saw it scanning System Volume Information ,detect a possible infection,
then encountered an error and had to be forcefully closed.
After that, I checked System Restore and found that all restore points were wiped out (there were 30 of them before the scan) -Well so much for that No way to reverse this in MBAM.

BTW, re-installing the IDE controller did detect drives other than the boot drive or HDD 0. IOW,it doesn't have to redetect the drive it's on,only physical drives extra to HDD 0.
I know the drive is detected (in the BIOS) or nothing would run.

I looked at Mounted Devices in the Registry, but can't decipher the long strings describing the drives.All are shown though.

So I'll ask again, specifically ,where is the info about a harddrive stored?
It has to be in more places than one, since different programs/utiities report different results.

Pete.

 

I couldn't tell you where the information might be stored. I wouldn't be looking for it. Knowing where it is stored probably wouldn't tell me anything about why Windows can't access it.

Try resetting the filters
"One of the Filter Drivers Installed for This Device Is Invalid" Error Message When You Restart the Computer

Look in Event Viewer for any errors that occur when opening Disk Management.

Does MBAM have a log that could tell you what it did?

Those are the sorts of checks I would be carrying out.

Matt

 

[FONT= "Verdana"]Matt, You're Da Man [/FONT]
That link to M$ was a great find.Thanks very much.
Won't forget this one very quickly

The one I chose out of your suggestions was deleting the upper filters.
Exact actions: Followed the instructions provided by M$.
Rebooted as indicated.Bootscreen came up and loading bar was churning away,
but getting nowwhere.Looked like it was not going to boot up at all.
Waited for 10 min ,but no dice.Rebooted ,but this time pressed F8 and got the bootconfig screen.
Chose to "Start Windows normally" > That did the trick. It booted into Windows, installed the "newly detected" hard drives, asked for another reboot and the job was fixed.
HDD 0 now shows in Diskmanager, Device Manager and System Info, plus of course everywhere else it did show before.

I've spelled this out for anyone running into this,because the initial bootup
after deleting the filters, might confuse some people in thinking that now the system is hosed completely.

BTW, as to your other suggestions - very valid ,but Event Viewer showed no error.
MBAM does have a log ,but did not record this action nor the deletion of the Restore points.

BTW - I did make a backup of the Reg entry before deleting it.
If all had failed ,I would have restored it via a Live CD and a remote RegEditor.
Fortunately no need for that,but it's good to be prepared.

Matt ,thanks a lot again. I could've lived without it,but it's great to have
a normal system again ,haha

Pete

 

I had seen, used and recommended the filter reset information for CD/DVD drives in the past, but hadn't noticed that one before.

Thanks for the walk-though, very good

PS You say the E: drive is bootable, does it have a different version of Windows on it?
No restore points are available when you use Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008-based operating systems in a dual-boot configuration together with an earlier Windows operating system

 

Hi Matt,

Yes, I was aware of the fix for CD/DVD drives too, but didn't know that a similar fix was
available for hardddrives. Like I said ,great find.

As to the other partitions, yes they have various versions of Windows on them.
Some are nLited or test versions of XP and there is one with Win7, but that wasn't the cause of the RPs wipe out.
The wipe occurs on Win7 after you boot into XP .
Can be avoided by hiding the drives from eachother, but was not relevant in this case.

BTW,thanks for the link explaining about the dual boot setup.
I was aware of it, but not of all the detail as described on that page.
Apart from that. I hadn't booted into Win7 ,either before or after and also never experienced this before.

Mind you, this experience does make me a bit leery of MBAM - might have been just a coincidence or bad luck - just don't know.
Actually had something similar happen with SuperAntiSpyware.
It started flagging numerous system files in .....\system32 Since I always scrutinize the results and recognized many of them, I obviously didn't delete them.
All were legitimate M$ files.After reporting this I was told that somehow part of the core application had not started and this was the result
I used to recommend both of them and like them,but am now very cautious using them.
To be sure -I'm not bad-mouthing them - just saying to be careful.

Pete