Can't see hard drive or DVD drive in Computer or Windows Explorer

I reinstalled Windows 7 and everything went well. I can access the internal drive and the DVD drive through Open on Disk Management and a shortcut for the hard drive on the desktop that I created after the install but can't see the hard drive or the DVD drive in Computer or Windows Explorer.

I have an external hard drive that stopped appearing in Computer or Windows Explorer before I reinstalled. It is still accessible through Disk Management but still doesn't appear in Computer.

Thanks for any tips.

No yellow exclamation points - all three drives appear normally.

The subject of the post is "Can't see hard drive or DVD drive in Computer or Windows Explorer"

Hi Denotenator,

You seem to have an OEM machine, DELL ( from your System Specs )

What media did you use for the clean install? Is it DELL OEM installation Disk, DELL recovery disks you probably made or if other than these two what is it?

Faladu said:

Does a 3rd party file manager app like Total Commander or XYplorer see/allow use of the drives?

Narrowing this down...

I'd try SFC /scannow from START | search box [admin acct] or command prompt with admin rights.
Verify your windows files and then scan for viruses with the usual virus tools.

Total Commander will access C: drive but not Computer. XYplorer will not access C: because it can't access Computer.

SFC / scannow did not show any problems. Norton has been running scans and no problems show up.

jumanji said:

Hi Denotenator,

You seem to have an OEM machine, DELL ( from your System Specs )

What media did you use for the clean install? Is it DELL OEM installation Disk, DELL recovery disks you probably made or if other than these two what is it?

I have a Dell 960 and I reinstalled Windows 7 Pro from a CD. I didn't use Dell recovery disks. All data remained on the disk, and apparently so did Dell drivers. There were no driver updates needed when I checked. Windows 7 downloaded over a 100 updates.

It would appear that you have one of those "Ole My God" problems. . .

Sometimes you just have to "Bite the Bullet," and do a reinstall, or attempt a "Recovery.". . .Darn!