HDD not recognized

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G

Guest

All of a sudden Vista won't recognize my Samsung hd1600jj 160GB SATA II
Drive, or my Samsung CD/DVD Reader/Writer. It's asking for the drivers, but
I never needed drivers for them in the first place.
 
Just go to Samsung's website and download the drivers for your CD/DVD Reader.
There may also be drivers available for your hard drive too.
 
Nope, there aren't. I checked. And I don't know why I'd have to if I never
needed drivers for a HD before. Obviously there's something wrong with
Windows.
Actually, my DVD drive works, but appears in the unknown device section as
well.
 
S Murder wrote:
....
Actually, my DVD drive works, but appears in the unknown device section as
well.
Click to expand...

Please try this: open a command prompt window as administrator and type
'perfmon'. When the window opens click on the icon for Reliability
Monitor. Browse around there and see if you can find anything to clue
us all in to what's causing this annoying problem.

Thanks.
 
I used the tool, but it doesn't let me export the info to a file, copy and
paste the text, and it doesn't even show the time the events happened (only
dates). I looked at it, and all it says is that it installed a bunch of
Updates and that it failed to install the HDD drivers a bunch of times.
 
Your really not looking for HD drivers...you are looking for the drivers for
the SATA controller on your motherboard.............try going to device
manager and see if your HD is listed as being connected to a SATA or EIDE
controller.....try rolling back the driver to the previous version or go to
your mobo website and search for the drivers there.
peter
 
S said:
I used the tool, but it doesn't let me export the info to a file, copy and
paste the text, and it doesn't even show the time the events happened (only
dates). I looked at it, and all it says is that it installed a bunch of
Updates and that it failed to install the HDD drivers a bunch of times.
Click to expand...

Thanks for trying it. The big question is why the driver installation
failed. If you're up to a bit more detective work I strongly advise
using this great debugging tool:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/ProcessesAndThreads/processmonitor.mspx
(The download link is way at the bottom of the page.)

It requires no installation. Once you unzip it you can even run it from
your Desktop if you want.

If I had your problem I would use it to monitor which directories Vista
searches while looking for its driver files. It will also tell you
which Registry keys are accessed and more, if you want it to.

If I could reproduce the bug I probably could have found the answer by
now :o(
 
I tried that program too, but I'm not sure what to look for.

Other helpful info:
I just put all my computer stuff into a new case, and got a new CPU fan.
Windows started, crashed twice, and I booted into Safe mode. In Safe mode
everything worked fine, and when I rebooted into normal mode is when I had
these problems.
The DVD/CD drive appears like it should in the Device Manager, but not in My
Computer and there's also an unknown DVD drive in Device Manager.
Both the HDD and DVD/CD drive appear fine in the BIOS.
I'm back in Safe Mode, and the problems are still there.
 
Latest chipset drivers for the MB installed?
Seems to me the Chipset isn't workin 100% (drivers) and not reporting
corrcet to Vista.
In safe mode there are no drivers loaded.

Ko.
 
S said:
Other helpful info:
I just put all my computer stuff into a new case, and got a new CPU fan.
Windows started, crashed twice...
Click to expand...

That's a different kettle of fish. Now it sounds like a hardware
problem, but more like a loose or dirty connector somewhere. Maybe
just reseating any plugs, cables, etc would fix it.
The DVD/CD drive appears like it should in the Device Manager, but not in My
Computer
Click to expand...

That sounds like other threads I've seen where using regedit to delete
any references to 'upper filters' and 'lower filters' fixes the problem.
That seems to be caused by installing and deleting legacy CD/DVD apps
which leave these incorrect registry entries behind.
and there's also an unknown DVD drive in Device Manager.
Click to expand...

And if you delete that unknown device and reboot?
 
Actually the DVD/CD Rom Drive does appear in My Computer. I'm sure why I
thought it didn't.
Unplugging and replugging the cables didn't help at all.
 
I can't roll back it's drivers because it doesn't have any installed.

Hmm, I reinstalled the MoBo drivers and restarted my computer and the HDD
appears in My Computer now. It's using the same disk drivers that were
already on my computer though. Not sure why they didn't work before.
The mystery disk drive is still there though. I tried uninstalling it, but
it just reappears, and when I have Windows search for a driver, it also
automatically searches for a driver for the HDD that is now working all of a
sudden (and the search fails for both devices).
 
I can't roll back it's drivers because it doesn't have any installed.

Hmm, I reinstalled the MoBo drivers and restarted my computer and the HDD
appears in My Computer now. It's using the same disk drivers that were
already on my computer though. Not sure why they didn't work before.
The mystery disk drive is still there though. I tried uninstalling it, but
it just reappears, and when I have Windows search for a driver, it also
automatically searches for a driver for the HDD that is now working all of a
sudden (and the search fails for both devices).





- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

Have to come in here folks - I have had this problem with two hard
disks now on Vista, one a Barracuda and one a Maxtor Diamondmax. When
the drive is installed, on first boot Vista asks for a driver for the
<model number> device, then tries to install from Windows Update. No
dice. Then it asks you for a driver disk and then says it can't get a
driver.

In "Computer Management", the disk is there, but you can't assign a
drive letter to it or format it - the commands are either greyed out
or return an "Disk Management is not up-to-date" error message then
freezes, after popping up anoyther wizard for "unknown device" It is
notable how this only appears when you try to logically access the
drive in disk manager. I dual-boot with XP Pro and the disk is fine
there, I have put files on it, formatted, etc.

A lot of people are commenting on this thread and other threads by
saying "You really need drivers for your controller". This isn't
correct. I called Seagate tech support on Friday (same company for
both disks now after a merger) and they had heard of the problem
affecting a few units, and advised me to use software to low-level
format the drive in XP. I did this, booted in Vista and.....same
problem. Only two of my other hard disks which were a spanned dynamic
disk, have disappeared too.

The problem is Vista asking for drivers for a device for which drivers
are never distributed!

George
 
I spoke too soon. It just stopped working again.

S Murder said:
I can't roll back it's drivers because it doesn't have any installed.

Hmm, I reinstalled the MoBo drivers and restarted my computer and the HDD
appears in My Computer now. It's using the same disk drivers that were
already on my computer though. Not sure why they didn't work before.
The mystery disk drive is still there though. I tried uninstalling it, but
it just reappears, and when I have Windows search for a driver, it also
automatically searches for a driver for the HDD that is now working all of a
sudden (and the search fails for both devices).
Click to expand...
 
I had this family of problems too.
I disabled the drive, and told the BIOS not to automatically recognize the
second drive. Then i rebooted and enabled teh BIOS and enabled the drive in
device manager.
something worked.
 
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