How-To Geek Forums Topic: My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive

How-To Geek Forums Topic: My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ How-To Geek Forums Topic: My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive en Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:45:56 +0000 skysearcher on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive/page/2#post-51543 Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:07:49 +0000 skysearcher 51543@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ ScottW is the King! Your suggestion for using diskpart to deactivate the 2nd drive completely fixed my computer, and my day!! Thanks for the great info.! raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive/page/2#post-44439 Thu, 28 Aug 2008 00:32:20 +0000 raphoenix 44439@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, No problem at all with the response time. I have been out of town for a week myself and just returned. As I indicated in my last reply, I just disliked being the bearer of bad news concerning the hard drive, especially for a "non-profit" organization. I do hope the information recovery process is very successful. Let us know how it goes. Kindest Regards, Rick P. ♣ Haddo on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive/page/2#post-44432 Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:54:46 +0000 Haddo 44432@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Rick: Sorry for not responding sooner but I was out of town on business. Since nothing that we tried was able to recover the data, the drive was sent to a company to have the data professionally recovered. raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive/page/2#post-39159 Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:44:30 +0000 raphoenix 39159@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, Reading back through the postings; if the drive was formatted in FAT32 and you tried it in other machines and in Dos, then the only thing I can think of considering all the attempted solutions, is that the HD has lost its drive tables which makes it unreadable thusly unformatted even though it still has all your info intact on it. If it has irreplaceable valuable info on it, I would try to have it professionally recovered. Otherwise, format is most likely your only solution to use the drive again. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Rick P. kyledaballa on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive/page/2#post-39137 Sat, 02 Aug 2008 00:54:54 +0000 kyledaballa 39137@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Install all updates for windows xp. I have a IDE drive and a RAID in one tower and that is the only way i can access the raid. Haddo on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive/page/2#post-37037 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 22:21:33 +0000 Haddo 37037@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Rick, I had done that a few days ago also and it did not make a difference. When I ran fdisk the drive showed up as it did in "Disk Management" but not in "My Computer". raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive/page/2#post-37020 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:36:24 +0000 raphoenix 37020@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, That Don't sound good plus the HD is not recognized on other machines. One last try. Put the HD in another machine as you did. Boot from the Win98 boot disk in the floppy drive into old dos. If the boot disk has the program Fdisk on it, try this. FDISK (Drive Letter): /MBR and see if that restores any HD readability. I think the HD as (dropped a bit) out of its drive table. Let's see if ScottW has some more ideas. Regards, Rick P. Haddo on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36984 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:06:51 +0000 Haddo 36984@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Rick, I had tried that a few days ago with a Win98 boot disk. While DOS recognizes the drive, it could not be read. It gave the message "Abort, Retry, Fail". raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36954 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:59:55 +0000 raphoenix 36954@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, While we wait on an a reply from ScottW, do you have a machine with a Floppy Drive and an old Dos Boot Floppy perhaps laying around ?? Would be interested to see how old Dos sees the HD. Regards, Rick P. Haddo on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36920 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:48:39 +0000 Haddo 36920@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ ScottW, The partition is made inactive but it is still not showing up. ScottW on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36722 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 20:01:17 +0000 ScottW 36722@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, you are correct. Although the partition is marked active, it should still show up in Explorer. That it would not show up was my gut feeling, but I can find no evidence to support that. Still, marking this partition not active is an easy and harmless step. If that fixes it, great. If not, then we are looking for other possibilities. Is the MBR corrupted, is the drive online, is the volume mounted? It's hard to know exactly what's going on with this partition. Did you try accessing it in Safe Mode or Recovery Console? I can think of many ways to approach this problem. Haddo on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36699 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:48:24 +0000 Haddo 36699@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ ScottW, before I set the drive to “inactive” I am just curious as to why the drive being “active” will cause “My Computer” not to see it? I have looked at other computers with similar configurations with “Disk 1” set to “Active” and there is no problem with “My Computer seeing the drive”. raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36538 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 03:22:30 +0000 raphoenix 36538@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Scott, Yes, I think I see what you mean. This machine has (6) drives so I went to a Volume and could mark it (ACTIVE) in the GUI, HOWEVER you are correct. The menu does not (flip) in the GUI to mark the Volume as (INACTIVE). Because I use raid, etc., my drives are all configured as Primary Single Volumes so I don't have a multi-partition Volume to see if the GUI menu flips so one can mark a partition on a multi-partition Volume as (INACTIVE). For some reason I thought it would but I guess not. I always use Ghost on a Dos Floppy to mark partitions so I haven't looked at the option for a while - Sorry About That. I hope your solution works for Haddo as I remember there was a problem with HDs between 6 and 9 Gigs during that era. Regards, Rick P. ScottW on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36535 Tue, 22 Jul 2008 02:39:31 +0000 ScottW 36535@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Rick, can you mark a partition as NOT active in Disk Management? I don't have a spare active partition lying around to test this with, but I believe that is not an option that you are presented with in Disk Management. raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36481 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:08:48 +0000 raphoenix 36481@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ @ScottW, Just out of curiosity, why go to DISKPART when one can do the same thing with a right click on the volume in Disk Management ?? Regards, Rick P. ScottW on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36471 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:47:52 +0000 ScottW 36471@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, for whatever reason the sole partition on your second disk, "Disk 1" in Disk Management, is set to "Active". To be able to access the data from My Computer you need to use the diskpart command to mark it as inactive. Here's how. You must use an administrator account, then open a command prompt. Go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> Command Prompt. Now run the following commands: <code> > diskpart DISKPART> select disk 1 DISKPART> select partition 1 DISKPART> inactive DISKPART> exit > exit </code> Now reboot the system and you should have access to that D: drive from My Computer. If anything looks wrong while you are doing this, stop and ask questions. Diskpart is a very powerful tool that can do a lot of damage if not used correctly. raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36459 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 20:23:20 +0000 raphoenix 36459@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, Yours is common problem that appears on many forums and groups. Unfortunately, I couldn't find even a suggestion of a solid answer reading thru the postings. I'm guessing the second drive was probably formated on a machine with an (old Bios) to keep the explanation simple. However, what bothers me is that the volume was showing OK BEFORE you re-installed XP and also the fact it won't show up now in other machines. (Could have dropped a Bit in the drive table) You can try this if you haven't done so already. Run Chkdsk on the drive volume. Then go back in disk management and assign it another letter like F: or something. Reboot. What happens ?? I'll continue to search for a solid answer for you. Regards, Rick P. Haddo on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36391 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:22:32 +0000 Haddo 36391@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Raphoenix, We tried almost everything but nothing seems to work. We install the HD in several other computers as a slave drive where it shows up in the BIOS but not in "My Computer". "Disk 0" is formatted NTFS and "Disk 1" was formatted Fat32, which I do not think should make a difference because both was showing in "My Computer" before XP was reinstalled. Ironically the second drive was installed as a backup drive for data storage in case of a problem with the computer, and that is the one that is having problems. The small HD was installed because a larger HD was not needed to backup the limited amount of data that is used. The data on the disk was less than 1 GB. raphoenix on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36337 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:28:39 +0000 raphoenix 36337@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ Haddo, The machine sounds to be fairly old especially having a (8) Gig HD. How are the hard drives formated IE. Fat32 or NTFS ?? Does the machine have a Floppy Disk Drive ?? Do you have a Dos floppy boot disk or can you make one ?? Another thought, can you pull the HD and put in another machine ?? I remember there was an issue years ago with some HDs, during the (8) or (9) Gig transition period but can't remember all the details. This may or may not be applicable in this case but it was an issue during the period. Is that small drive by chance a Western Digital ?? I'm just thinking how you can save the Non-Profit some bucks by being innovative. Regards, Rick P. Haddo on "My Computer does not recognize my second hard drive" http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/my-computer-does-not-recognize-my-second-hard-drive#post-36320 Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:37:00 +0000 Haddo 36320@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ ScottW, "Disk 0" has 1 partition which is "Drive C". "Disk 1" has 1 partition which is "Drive D". Both disks shows up in the BIOS and also in "Disk Management". Both disk could be seen in "My Computer" before I reinstalled XP to Disk 0. If the disk had more than one partition, which it does not, each partition would normally show up in "My Computer" as a separate drive. The Computer is used by a local non-profit organization so both HD are small. "Disk 0" is 40 GB, and "Disk 1" is just 6.5 GB. The data on "Disk 1", which is a backup drive, is less than 1 GB, is what we are hoping to recover. Will a data recovery software recover the data if the HD does not show up in "My Computer, and how to get "My Computer" to recognize the disk?