Windows can't see 2nd HDD.

Hello and thanks for your time.

I was recently defragging my 2nd HDD (internal). It was taking hours so I stopped the defrag. A message came up and without reading it I confirmed the stop. Since then Windows does not acknowledge the existence of the 2nd HDD. I have tried system restore and get "changes made after this point cannot be reversed...the drive was either excluded from system restore monitoring, or was turned off or removed. "

Any ideas how to get my drive back? It appears in the BIOS but not windows. I have exchanged IDE cable, there is definitely power to the drive and it sounds as though it boots up.

Thanks, BMAT.

 

what does diskmanager say about the drive?

 

The second drive does not appear in the disk manager. I have had a look in the BIOS and it appears as though it is detected there, but anything to do with windows - it doesn't exist. I have spoken to the IT guy at my work, he asked the same thing and ended up telling me he would think about it.....that was about 4 or 5 days ago.

 

what's the make/model of drive and how is it hooked up?

check for BIOS updates for the machine as well ... particularly if bios doesn't interpret the drive parameters properly.

 

That response is correct - I assume this is a data drive and SR did not and should not be monitoring that drive. The only drive SR should be monitoring is the OS partition/drive.

I don't see how this is a BIOS problem since the drive was recoqnized prior to this, but always worth a shot to update the BIOS.

The fact that defrag was taking so long to me indicates that, unless you've never defragged before, something is wrong with the drive physically. Have you looked in the case and made sure nothing loose?

How long has this drive been installed and how was it working prior to this?

Regards - Charles

 

Look in device manager and and see if you see any yellow exclamation points anywhere. Wondering about the IDE controller it's on.

 

Try to borrow a win98 boot disk and run fdisk to examine the drive (just options 4 and 5): see if it's recognized and if so, what partition(s)if any is/are seen. Set us know.

You may have to download a utility from the mfgr.'s web site and format the drive with that.

 

Was the drive working ok before defrag? How is it hooked up?

 

Thanks for all the replies.

The drive is a Seagate 60gb. It is about 3 years old and could well have died. It was my original HDD until a recent upgrade and then became the slave.

The drive does not appear in the device manager at all.

I have checked and triple checked the connections to the drive, both power and IDE cable. I have exchanged the IDE cable as well with no success.

The drive was working prior to this defrag. I did defrag the drive regularly. It is the first time I have had a second HDD installed and I thought that it was very slow at times, especially during defrags. I only used to keep back up files of photos and some home movies so at least I haven't lost crucial data.

I will try to hunt down a WIN98 boot disk and see what happens.

At this stage, I can't get onto the ASUS bios update page due to alleged heavy server traffic.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

 

LOL, I can sympathize with ya on that one. Been there a time or two myself. I'll never understand why a company like that would have so many problems of this nature. Often, when I can't get into the US download sight I'll select the global one and be right in though. Good luck.

 

I suggest uninstalling the IDE Controller in Device Manager, that will make Windows reset all the drives. The IDE Controller will be automatically reinstalled when you reboot. It would be good to find the latest chipset drivers at Asus (if you can get through ).

Matt

 

i've normally done the same. the .tw site seems much more reliable.

and to OP - i'd get the seagate diags and run em. probably the first option i'd try here.

 

THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU

You guys are all legends.

Mattman's suggestion to uninstall the IDE controllers did the trick. I have my drive back!

Once again thankyou for all your assistance and advice. I know where to go next time I have a problem with my PC.

Cheers,
BMAT

 

WHEW! That's lucky. Throwing the computer out the window is the next step after the hammer solution

Ususally, if the drive shows up OK in the BIOS, it means that Windows is having trouble seeing it. You need to lend it some eyeglasses.

Matt

 

See if it is listed in Disk Management

Assuming XP:

Start - All Programs - Administrative Tools - Computer Management - Disk Management.

It will give you the status of the missing disk.

R.