Second Storage HardDisk Disapeared

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Guest

I have 2 HDD one is the one that runs my OS and the other one i use for
storage. I dont know how exactly it happen but i clicked on My Computer and
my E:/ drive was gone. I tried to get to it by using explorer and typing the
path directly to it. I have used this storage device for about 3-4 months
now, if not longer. I dont know what could be the problem it appears under
the device manager but it does not appear in my computer. It appears in my
BIOS but again not in MY Computer. Can any one help?
 
Martin said:
I have 2 HDD one is the one that runs my OS and the other one i use for
storage. I dont know how exactly it happen but i clicked on My Computer and
my E:/ drive was gone. I tried to get to it by using explorer and typing the
path directly to it. I have used this storage device for about 3-4 months
now, if not longer. I dont know what could be the problem it appears under
the device manager but it does not appear in my computer. It appears in my
BIOS but again not in MY Computer. Can any one help?
Click to expand...

What happens when attemtping to re-assign the drive letter
in Drive Management? If drive letter is refused, open the
computer case. Check the connections to it. Does it feel
like the platters are spinning? As a last resort, remove the
HD and test it in another computer.
 
Martin said:
I have 2 HDD one is the one that runs my OS and the other one i use for
storage. I dont know how exactly it happen but i clicked on My Computer
and
my E:/ drive was gone. I tried to get to it by using explorer and typing
the
path directly to it. I have used this storage device for about 3-4 months
now, if not longer. I dont know what could be the problem it appears under
the device manager but it does not appear in my computer. It appears in my
BIOS but again not in MY Computer. Can any one help?
Click to expand...


Martin:
We'll assume that just before this problem arose you did not make any
software or hardware changes that might account for this problem, right? But
in case you did, please indicate precisely what changes you made.

For the moment we'll also assume that neither the involved HD is defective,
nor is the data cable connecting to the HD. And you've properly
connected/configured that HD. And that is so because you've made no hardware
changes just before this problem arose, right?

So do this...

Access Disk Management and see if the problem HD is listed there and a drive
letter has been assigned to it. If it is listed but no drive letter has been
assigned, see if you can assign one by right-clicking on its listing. If
there is a listing but you're unable to assign a drive letter (the menu item
is grayed out), see if the drive will "open up" by right-clicking on the
schematic and selecting the Open or Explore sub-menu item.

If still "no go", shut down the machine, disconnect the secondary HD, and
boot up with only your boot drive connected. Then shut down the machine,
reconnect the secondary HD, and see if the drive is now recognized. If not,
go through the DM routine again.

If still problems, download the HD diagnostic utility from the manufacturer
of your HD and test out the disk. Also, if you have another data cable use
it in place of the present one.
Anna
 
My Dell Dimension 8400 seems to hate additional HDs.
I bought an extra internal HD Maxtor 300 GB, but it crashed two times and
was replaced.
Adding external HD´s as well made the Maxtor crash again (after working well
for half a year), and now I have installed my fourth Maxtor, but after moving
some files to the new Maxtor, it crashes when I try to do anything with the
files (except move them internal on the Maxtor). The system freezes för 30
seconds, the Maxtor disappears and a message that the $Mft is lost comes up.
Restarting the system sometimes makes the Maxtor come back with the files
visable. The files are mostly mp3s and MPEGs.
I do understand that Maxtor has a bad reputation, but I also beleive that
there´s something wrong with the XP that can´t handle multiple big disks.

Suggestions?

RViberg
 
I have not made any changes to the software or hardware on my PC. Like i
mentioned before it just occured one day. When i go to the disk management
under the Volume Section my C drive appears but not my E drive. In the other
part that reads the HDD as disk it says Disk 0 is my C drive and NTFS Healthy
But in Disk 1 where my E drive used to be it has it as OFFLINE and It reads
it as Dynamic. When i try to reactivate the Disk under the rick click option
menu i get a error message saying ( The operation did not complete. Ckeck the
System Event Log for more information on the error. I can also use the
option where it lets me conver the disk to basic disk but it tells me that i
will lose all the data that is in the disk, but i dont want to do that just
yet i dont want to errase 300gig of stuff. Is there any other way i can get
my data back with out having to do that. Ohh yeah forgot to mention that i
reinstalled my OS on my C drive but removed my E drive for that operation
when it was done i added my E drive again and it was working fine for a month
till this happend. But i dont think that was the cuase of this.
 
Martin said:
I have not made any changes to the software or hardware on my PC. Like i
mentioned before it just occured one day. When i go to the disk
management
under the Volume Section my C drive appears but not my E drive. In the
other
part that reads the HDD as disk it says Disk 0 is my C drive and NTFS
Healthy
But in Disk 1 where my E drive used to be it has it as OFFLINE and It
reads
it as Dynamic. When i try to reactivate the Disk under the rick click
option
menu i get a error message saying ( The operation did not complete. Ckeck
the
System Event Log for more information on the error. I can also use the
option where it lets me conver the disk to basic disk but it tells me that
i
will lose all the data that is in the disk, but i dont want to do that
just
yet i dont want to errase 300gig of stuff. Is there any other way i can
get
my data back with out having to do that. Ohh yeah forgot to mention that i
reinstalled my OS on my C drive but removed my E drive for that operation
when it was done i added my E drive again and it was working fine for a
month
till this happend. But i dont think that was the cuase of this.
Click to expand...


It appears that someone or something may have changed your HD disk type from
basic to dynamic. If so, that would account for the problem you're
experiencing assuming you're running Windows XP Home Ed. That version of the
XP OS does not support dynamic disks. If that *is* the problem, there is no
simple conversion process that I'm aware of that will return the dynamic
disk to a basic disk so that the contents of the drive would be accessed by
your present OS. The usual conversion process - see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309044&sd=tech will
result in the deletion of all data on the disk.

There have been some published hacks that supposedly can convert a dynamic
disk to a basic disk without the loss of data - see
http://thelazyadmin.com/index.php?/archives/161-Converting-Dynamic-Disks-Back-to-Basic-Disks.html
and http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806 . But, in general, the
accepted workaround is to reinstall the disk in whatever OS, e.g., XP
Professional, supports dynamic disks and retrieve whatever data you can
through copying/moving the data to other media. Hopefully you have access to
a machine with the XP Pro OS to accomplish this. See also
http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_10.htm for additional info
concerning dynamic disks, and take a look at "How to Use Disk Management to
Configure Dynamic Disks in Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308424/en-us#EQACAAA
Anna
 
The thing is that i do own XP Pro so i dont know why this occured. I think
its Pro since that is what the CD and Booklet says. Is there any other way to
do this? And like i mentioned earlier it was working fine with this copy of
Windows XP Proffessional.
 
Martin said:
The thing is that i do own XP Pro so i dont know why this occured. I think
its Pro since that is what the CD and Booklet says. Is there any other way
to
do this? And like i mentioned earlier it was working fine with this copy
of
Windows XP Proffessional.
Click to expand...


If you are running XP Professional then there shouldn't be any problem
accessing that dynamic HD. So the only thing that comes to mind at this
point is that you may be dealing with a defective HD or a misconfigured one.
Recheck your connections and check out the HD with a diagnostic utility that
you can download from the HD's manufacturer.
Anna
 
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