Sparky Posted April 4, 2008 Report Share Posted April 4, 2008 I have had a problem with Windows recognising one of my hard drives which I use for data ever since re-installing Windows XP on my home machine.The drive itself is identified in Device Manager as working properly. Windows' Disk Management identifies the drive as existing, healthy and a basic disk using NTFS. All as it should be - even recognising the amount of data stored on the drive and the name I gave to it originally. The problem is that it has no drive letter. The only option I have within Disk Management is to 'Delete Partition' - all other options are shaded out.I have also tried to sort the disk out using diskpart.exe. This confirms the disk is recognisable, that the basic partition on the drive is OK but that there is no volume information. It seems that without the volume information, I cannot assign a drive letter to get the disk back to being usable within Windows.The drive was installed internally but, since having problems, has been moved into a powered external USB case in order to test the drive on other computers. This has made no difference and the drive is not accessible in Windows on either my home PC or work laptop (running XP Pro).I don't want to re-format the drive or do anything else which would harm the data still stored on the drive as it contains all of my backed up data from before I re-installed Windows on my systems main drive.Does anyone have any idea how I can reconstruct the missing volume information and assign a drive letter? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irene Posted April 4, 2008 Report Share Posted April 4, 2008 Welcome to the forum. :D Sparky, first of all, let me say that I am certainly not an expert in this field.However, I just came across this, which might be worth reading....LOOK HERE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted April 4, 2008 Report Share Posted April 4, 2008 This is quite odd. I would assume the drive has a problem. Are you able to change the drive letter in Windows? Instructions here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844Tools like TestDisk ( http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk ) may help you find the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted April 4, 2008 Report Share Posted April 4, 2008 If you right click the drive in Disk Management do you get the option to make partition active?. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted April 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 This is quite odd. I would assume the drive has a problem. Are you able to change the drive letter in Windows? Instructions here - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844Tools like TestDisk ( http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk ) may help you find the problem.Scarecrow Man, you're a genius! TestDisk was well worth a look at. It identified that there was a mismatch of data contained within the MBR and I assume this is what was confusing Windows into refusing to assign any drive letter to this particular HD. After re-writing the relevant data (all handled automatically from within TestDisk) and a quick reboot my drive is sitting pretty in Windows Explorer. The file names are all appearing in blue rather than black so I'm guessing it would be prudent to copy off of the disk asap but I can at least access my data. Thanks also though to Irene and Alan2273 for taking the time to respond (and for the welcome - much appreciated, Irene) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarecrow Man Posted April 7, 2008 Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 The names showing in blue simply means you have NTFS compression on. This is fine for a drive that does not contain Windows, but it is advised to leave compression OFF on a drive that contains Windows.I am glad TestDisk worked for you. It's worked for me in the past and is an excellent tool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted April 7, 2008 Author Report Share Posted April 7, 2008 The names showing in blue simply means you have NTFS compression on. This is fine for a drive that does not contain Windows, but it is advised to leave compression OFF on a drive that contains Windows.I am glad TestDisk worked for you. It's worked for me in the past and is an excellent tool.[copy of image deleted as its above]You're absolutely right. I could have sworn I'd not turned compression on. Spooky. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SLeeZeCoRe Posted May 12, 2008 Report Share Posted May 12, 2008 I've got this recently with a 250gb PB xHDD, my XP machine just stop seeing it one night, then after thrashing about after drivers and mobo updates I got it to recognise it but it showed up as completely blank :|After trying it on a few other machines I discovered there is nothing wrong and all my files are safe and sound.Still haven't figured it out though!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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