Disk Management Missing SYSTEM Drive (Disk 0)

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Guest

Running XP Pro, fresh installation (3 times) on a new computer. Gigabyte
GA-P35-DS3R motherboard, two Seagate SATA 500GB drives configured in RAID1.

Several days after successfully configuring and loading XP on this computer,
the System drive (DISK 0) DISAPPEARS from Disk Management! The computer
continues to boot fine, C: is visible and accessible from My Computer, but
not Disk Management. Strangely enough, Computer Management | Disk
Defragmenter still sees and can access Disk 0, but Computer Management | Disk
Management cannot.

Additional information: Three other volumes on the same RAID array continue
to show fine in Disk Manager as Disk 1, 2, and 3. Device manager shows the
System dirive with the correct volume name and says it is working properly;
however, if I go to the Volumes tab, it cannot populate that information
(Disk: unknown, Type: unknown, Status: unreadable, Partition Style: not
applicable).

I have Norton SystemWorks 2007 installed, and when I first put it on, it
sees C: fine and can back it up. Later, after this drive disappears from
Disk Management, Norton Save and Restore can no longer see that drive either.
Norton Utilities continue to see and access the drive just fine.

I have tried to use System Restore to roll back any MS patches and utilities
I have installed, but all restore points fail.

Any ideas? Thanx!
 
Yes, XP is the only OS, and it is current with all patches and updates
available from Microsoft Updates. Other than configuring utilities and
loading Baseline software like Office, I have done nothing else with this
system. After checking DM repeatedly for the first two days after the last
reload I finally decided it must be fixed and relaxed a little.

That was on 10/21, late in the day. On 10/22 I installed Java, Nero 7 (had
not been on previously when this problem happened) and Norton SystemWorks
2007. I configured Norton Save and Restore (new name for Ghost), and it saw
C: fine and was able to create backup jobs accessing C:. Unfortunately I did
not do a full static backup on C: at that time, but the file backup that
included all drives ran successfully that night. On 10/23 I did nothing
except install some Gigabyte motherboard utilities that I also had not
applied the first time this happened. Next time I checked DM, Disk 0 was
gone.
 
Gerry, this post was very helpful - I was not aware of the conflict with
Norton, and your information allowed me to use System Restore to find a point
BEFORE the problem began. I am currently going through detailed testing to
try and isolate exactly what caused Disk 0 to disappear from DM. I have
already had it happen AGAIN! I'll update this thread when I know for sure
what is causing it.
 
Definitive answer: This was caused by nothing more than just starting the
System Doctor utility within Norton SystemWorks 2007! Shut down System
Doctor and Disk 0 comes right back in Disk Management. Symantec won't even
talk about it - their response is a glib "This program is not supported on
any machine with a RAID controller."
 
Thanks for reporting what you found.


--
Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
I was cleaning up a friends PC, Dell vostro 1710, XP-Pro. After Malwarebytes & Avira scans I felt the PC was working OK.

I wanted to verify the hidden Dell restore drive was visible. Went to My Computer - right click Manage/Disk Management. Disk 0 was not there, only the CD. I decided to see if I could access the Dell restore drive. Booted the PC, did hold <Ctrl> and then press <F11> at the Dell blue banner. The hidden drive was accessed & offered to restore or just reboot. I did the reboot (no changes).

I took another look at My Computer - right click Manage/Disk Management. All drives now appear. I don't know why but all "looks" normal now. I guess I'll will see in time.

A little history on this PC.
In the past I had to run Dell restore but couldn't as the Dell MBR had been set to standard XP MBR. You could see the restore drive but couldn't access it. I Went through the process of restoring the Dell MBR which can be found on the WEB (too long to post here).
 
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