Why does one of my HD's not "Show up" anymore?

soarwitheagles · 10-28-2009, 05:48 PM

Hi everyone!

The largest of my HD's no longer shows up when I click computer! It does show up when I open Computer Management, Storage!

Apparently there is no longer a letter assigned to this hard drive???

Oh, one other thing, just before this HD vanished, my Windows Vista Ultimate took a dump [gave me the Black Screen of Death], and I have never been able to recover it.

Presently, I have been booting off of Windows 7 RC on a second drive installed on the computer and it has been working just fine. I would like to install Windows 7 Ultimate that I just received from Microsoft.

Well, here are my questions:

Can I do anything to bring this "missing" hard drive online?

Is this drive bad? And if yes, how can I test it to be sure?

Would changing the "drive letter" or "path" help me in this mess?

Is there anyway I can recover my data from this drive?

And last, since I cannot format this drive through "normal" windows functions, is using Gparted the way to go?

Ok, poor eaglesoar is lost as can be on this one.

Please give me a helping hand and/or wing.

Up, up, and away!

Thanks,

Soar

carnageX · 10-28-2009, 05:50 PM

Assign a drive letter to it in Win7 RC that you're in, and see if you can access it. If you can, back the data up, and run a check disk on it.

soarwitheagles · 10-28-2009, 05:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carnageX

Assign a drive letter to it in Win7 RC that you're in, and see if you can access it. If you can, back the data up, and run a check disk on it.

Ok, trying it right now...

Be right back with the results!

Thanks Carn,

Soar

Carn,

I tried to assign a letter to the drive and nada happens.

What else can I do?

Soar

Fat.Clown · 10-28-2009, 06:13 PM

its a seagate 1+tb.... try checking the drive with seatools

soarwitheagles · 10-28-2009, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat.Clown

its a seagate 1+tb.... try checking the drive with seatools

FC,

Hi again! Well, actually, it is a Maxtor Diamond Max 22, 1 TB [It is in my Q6600 build].

What else can I do [and yes, I just saw on the HD that it is manufactured by Seagate Technology, Wuxi, China.

To be 100% honest with you, I cannot even remember when or where I purchased this baby [I will begin the long task of looking at all my past receipts].

The date code is 08391. Can anyone help me understand how old my HD is [It will help me to locate the correct year of my income tax receipts].

Does Maxtor have a special tool to check this? Or, will the Seagate seatool work?

It's me,

Soar with a one terabyte broken wing...ouch!

SpikedCola · 10-28-2009, 07:48 PM

I just ran into the exact same problem of having a drive letter disappear, but with a Maxtor 500GB drive, here:
Cannot Assign Drive Letter To Partition

You said you tried to reassign a letter, but nothing happens; do you get an error like I do?

soarwitheagles · 10-28-2009, 08:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SpikedCola

I just ran into the exact same problem of having a drive letter disappear, but with a Maxtor 500GB drive, here:
Cannot Assign Drive Letter To Partition

You said you tried to reassign a letter, but nothing happens; do you get an error like I do?

Thanks for your input SpikeCola!

I do not receive an error message, but when I attempt to assign a letter drive, nothing occurs at all.

And I cannot access the drive anymore too. It happened about 3 months ago immediately following a series of Black Screen of Death while using Windows Vista Ultimate 32 bit OS.

I have not found the time to trouble shoot it until just now.

If I am understanding these experts here, I am to run Seagate's Seatool or something like Western Digital's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics.

Am I tracking correctly or is there something that I am missing here? I just read another article that suggested using the BIOS to test the HD...

Hmmmmm....

Who, Who, Who, Who is correct, asked the Wise Old Owl with a slight stutter? :--)

Soar

SpikedCola · 10-28-2009, 08:04 PM

I ran those tools simply to rule out the issue being the drive itself. Try getting something like Paragon Partition Manager, and see if that will let you assign a drive letter. If the drive is okay, even if you cant assign a drive letter, you can still use it to explore the drive and extract any files youd need

Mak213 · 10-28-2009, 08:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by soarwitheagles

Oh, one other thing, just before this HD vanished, my Windows Vista Ultimate took a dump [gave me the Black Screen of Death], and I have never been able to recover it.

This is your problem right here. The drive was in use at the time, probably reading or writing data when you crashed. The drive got corrupted which is why you can't assign a drive letter.

You need to check with a Linux LiveCD to see if you can still access the files. The drive may not mount cause it wasnt shut down properly. Your only option maybe to delete the partition, create a new partition and try to recover the files.

soarwitheagles · 10-28-2009, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mak213

This is your problem right here. The drive was in use at the time, probably reading or writing data when you crashed. The drive got corrupted which is why you can't assign a drive letter.

You need to check with a Linux LiveCD to see if you can still access the files. The drive may not mount cause it wasnt shut down properly. Your only option maybe to delete the partition, create a new partition and try to recover the files.

Mak,

Well, thanks again. I never would have thought of that, but now that you mention it, it appears as if that is exactly what happened! This is very good news to me because it infers that the HD is still good, still usable, and is merely corrupted.

Mak, I am totally [101%] Linux ignorant. Is there much involved in using Linux LiveCD in my attempt to recover the data?

Please let me know.

Oh, one more question...if I put this drive in my really nice computer, do I risk spreading the corruption?

It's me,

Soar

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