Missing Drive......

gsxr750steve

gsxr750steve

gsxr750steve

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Joined
30 Jan 2005
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64
Location
Oxford
Hi,
I've just rebuilt my PC and my SATA Raid drives are not showing up in Windows Explorer.

I can see them in BIOS, and I can see them in Disk Management, and I can see them in the VIA RAID tool - but Windows isn't seeing them....

Any ideas?

I really don't want to reformat them and start again as I'll have to reload all my data - and since the lower level apps can see them I'm hoping that I've just done something wrong somewhere and you guys will know the answer....

Thanks for your help.

Steve
 
rpstewart said:
When you're in Disk Management what are the drives labelled as? Do they have drive letters assigned?
Click to expand...

Hi,

Yes, it is labelled as E:RAID-Media (the original disk name). It correctly idenitifies the volume (465.77 GB NTFS) and it says that it is 'Healthy (Active)'.

When I right click on it though, I'm only given the option to 'Delete Partition', and can't do any of the other options like change drive letter, etc.

Thanks for trying to help me!

Steve
 
If it's a dynamic disk that you're trying to access then you may need to import it as a Foreign Disk. Do you have an "Import Foreign Disk" option when you click on the bit to the left of the partition map where it has a wee disk icon and the DiskX style label?
 
rpstewart said:
If it's a dynamic disk that you're trying to access then you may need to import it as a Foreign Disk. Do you have an "Import Foreign Disk" option when you click on the bit to the left of the partition map where it has a wee disk icon and the DiskX style label?
Click to expand...

Can't see anything like that.

Not sure what you mean by 'dynamic disk' I'm afraid....but certainly can't see anything about Foreign Disks.
 
You have 3 hard drives in total?
1 80Gb and 2 250Gb ones?
Because if you do, they are all there. The 80Gb is your C drive and the 2 250Gb dives are together in RAID 0 for your E drive.


*edit*
Oh, I see the fourth image now. No E drive.
 
Last edited:
Hi

Yes, I have three drives, and you are right - you can see them all - except in Windows Explorer....

So, I can see them in BIOS, Disk Management, etc. but if you look at the My Computer picture you will see that only the C: drive shows up (the 80G IDE drive). The 2 x 250G SATA drives configured in RAID0 don't appear which means that no Windows app can see the data on them.

It has to be something simple that I'm missing - so I'm sorry if I'm completely overlooking something here.....

Cheers

Steve

*edit*
Just seen your edit after I typed this reply..... :-)
 
The RAID0 array has not been assigned a drive letter for some reason - the E:RAID is the volume label, there should be an (E: ) including the brackets after it.

What options do you get if you right click on the grey bit where it says "Disk1" and on the partition map to the right of that?
 
gsxr750steve said:
When I right click on it the only option I am given is 'Delete Partition' or 'Help'....all the other options are greyed out.
Click to expand...

When you right click on which bit? There are separate context menus for the grey bit with the "Disk1" label and the bit with the blue stripe.
 
rpstewart said:
When you right click on which bit? There are separate context menus for the grey bit with the "Disk1" label and the bit with the blue stripe.
Click to expand...

Sorry...

When I right click on the Disk 1 bit (on the left) I get Properties and Help. Clicking on properties gives me a window with General, Policies, Volume, SCSI Properties and Driver tabs.

General Tab:
Correctly identifies the drive and says it is working properly.
Shows this - Bus Number 0, Target ID 0, LUN 0 as its location.

Policies Tab - greyed out with Optimise for Performance checked.

Volume Tab -
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Type: Master Boot Record (MBR)

SCSI Properties Tab -
Nothing checked.


Driver Tab -
Correct and latest driver installed.



when I click on the bit to the right with the Blue stripe, that is when the only option I get is 'Delete Partition' or 'Help'.

I'm out now for a few hours, but will have another go later. I really appreciate your help btw.

Steve
 
There's a fair amount of stuff on this subject on Google. The first thing to try is a "Rescan Disks" from the Actions menu in Disk Management.

Have you ever used a piece of software called "GoBack"?

I'll keep looking and edit this if anything else comes up

EDIT: GoBack an be installed as part of Norton SystemWorks

EDIT2: I wonder if it's because the partition is marked as active - only one HDD here so I can't test that theory until I get home.

EDIT3: Have you installed SP1 or SP2 for XP? Without either of those XP cannot recognise partitions greater than 132Gb and hence may be unable to apply a drive letter to it.
 
Last edited:
Hi RP

I've done the Rescan Disks thing a few times already with no joy.

I have GoBack - but of course when I reloaded the system I lost it and can't GoBack anymore....

I don't know about the idea of both drives being marked active - if you manage to have a look at that it would be great.

I'm on XP SP2 so should have no issue.

Remember that before I reloaded the software all of this was working perfectly. I have reloaded with the same s/w, driver level, etc. so can't see where the problem may lie.

I'm tempted just to delete the partition and reformat it, and start again. But at the back of my mind I'm worried that if I do that I will lose all of my data (obviously) but will still not be able to see my disks and so will be worse off than now.....

Might just bite the bullet later tonight and go for it - can't spend weeks on this can I?!!

Cheers

Steve
 
gsxr750steve said:
I have GoBack - but of course when I reloaded the system I lost it and can't GoBack anymore....
Click to expand...
Bingo! That's the problem.

GoBack apparantly changes the partition type to something slightly different so Windows isn't sure how to deal with it.

Gimme 5 mins to dig out the link again
 
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