Win7 loses a hard drive (1TB 3 partition)

Hi

Back at the end of August early September I had a weird problem in that my PC lost a hard drive. It seems odd I know but one time the drive was there and after rebooting it wasn't.

The BIOS page recognised the drive but when Win7 was fully booted up the drive just wasn't there - NOTHING found it, Windows Explorer, Disk Manager, Device Manager, Partition Wizard, Hard Drive Sentinel and even more odd (since all my drives are Seagates) not even DriverDetector from Seagate found it! I didn't even get any error messages. As a result I removed the drive and hooked it up using a system where I can simply and quickly connect it to a USB socket from my desk and it WAS found - complete with all files and directories. Absolutely nothing wrong!!! I left it like this for about a week and since it seemed to be OK I reinstalled it in my PC and its been working fine since then - until now.

It has now disappeared from Win7 again! It's not recognised by ANY program, Microsoft or otherwise. Only the BIOS reports four drives. Incidentally, I should add that between the two occasions I have completely reinstalled Win7 and all the apps and any necessary drivers, i.e. drivers that the Win7 installation didn't install. I have again just checked the BIOS and yes, all four drives are recognised in the BIOS but by the time Win7 is fully up and running, one drive (the same one as before - 1TB 3 partitions) has disappeared. I also confirm I've had no error messages of any sort. I also have no reason to think the drive is overheating - the last time I remember seeing it in my system tray, Hard Disk Sentinel was reporting a temperature in the mid to upper 30s.

It would be so easy to suggest that the hard disk is suspect but when running it up as described above it was recognised first time. I suspect the same thing would happen this time.

In the light of the above I'm hoping that someone may be able to give me a pointer as to what may be wrong and any help would be most appreciated. Many thanks.

Tracey

PS If any further info is required then please get back to me.

Does it behave this way when connected to a different motherboard port?? With a different cable?

Hello Tracey.

In the absence of any concrete reason as to why this is happening I think you need to contact Seagate with a view to getting the drive exchanged under warranty.

I'm not absolutely certain, but I think their hard drives are guaranteed for five years.

Warranty and Returns Assistance | Seagate

Hi all

There's been a development regarding my query above and most unexpected as well.

I've been trying to sort out an installation of Aver Media Centre which has involved installing and uninstalling again and this has been done several times. A few moments ago I noticed that during the installation I had the windows coming up that checks the contents of hard drives before making them accessible. I therefore waited for them to finish and lo and behold my drive with all partitions had returned.

I now know what I have to do. I've got to find an uninstall program that takes a snapshot of a system BEFORE installing software and also takes another snapshot of the system AFTER installation. Hopefully it'll have a listing of what is installed that can be read using a text editor. Obviously Aver Media Centre installs/overwrites a system file used by this one drive but on uninstalling it removes the file rather than recover the original file. Thus I lose my hard drive.

It's taken a bit of anguish to get this far but at least I have an idea what I have to do with a chance of sorting this problem out. Mind you what it'll do for the installation of my program I really have no idea but at least I feel I'm now getting somewhere.

Thanks very much for your replies and if I DO need any further assistance then I shall be back.

Tracey

Thanks for the update, Tracey.

We are here to help so please post back if you need further help.

Hi

Just in case it may help others with a similar problem, my findings at present are that it seems to be the later version of Aver Media Centre which mess with files needed by hard drives. By installing an earlier (and incidentally a seemingly more stable) version of the program, on uninstalling it did not take the file/s with it and I still had my hard drive showing in Windows Explorer.

As for the installation of my program, well everything went exactly as I've been hoping and makes me wonder why I had a problem in the first place. It seems as though I'm now OK with all my partitions and Aver Media Centre albeit an older version. Incidentally, I found the later versions to be somewhat unstable and that is why I was trying to find a version I was happy with and why I was installing/uninstalling so readily. Hopefully I now have a fully working (and stable) system.

Again thanks for your help but all being well I shall be OK now.

Tracey