Missing Drive......

Associate
Joined
30 Jan 2005
Posts
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?

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
 
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?

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.
 
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..... :-)
 
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.

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
 
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
 
RP - you are fantastic!!!

You are absolutely right - it was messed up by GoBack.

I couldn't get it to boot directly onto the RAID setup no matter what I tried, but in the end I realised I could just re-intall GoBack (part of Symantec SystemWorks) and Bob was my Uncle.....it appeared straight away.

Just as you were working this out I had the same thought - although mine was prompted by me purchasing Partition Magic - which showed the partition as 'GoBack' - I took the hint from there, and your mail confirmed it for me.

When I was rebuilding the PC I stopped as soon as I found the problem with the drive - if I had carried on installing the other apps I had to load, including GoBack, it would have all been fixed a few days ago...

Never mind eh?

I really, really appreciate your help mate. Thanks a million.

Happy Christmas!

Steve
:D
 
Back
Top Bottom