Windows 7 sometimes doesn't let me access other drives

Xax · 11 Apr 2009

This is sort of an extension of a previous problem, which I never found a solution for. Thread: Accessing drives in Windows Explorer takes a long time

Basically, I sometimes can't access other drives/partitions on my computer. If I look at my drives in Windows Explorer, I can see them all listed. If I double-click on the drive, the progress bar at the top of the window moves along very slowly, but the drive never actually opens.

Sometimes I can access a folder on the problem drive by running e:\stuff, while other times it will just open an empty Windows Explorer window. Sometimes I can access a folder, but if I try to access the same folder a few minutes later, I run into the same problem again.

Indexing is turned off for all but a few folders (library folders).

Any ideas?

garysgold · 11 Apr 2009

Hmmm, I might try adding all those places to the index. Give it a little time to get that done. And try it again. If things don't improve, then you can remove them from the index again. I have everything indexed except the Vista partition. Worth a shot if you haven't done so already.

Xax · 11 Apr 2009

I used to have it indexed, but it slowed things right down, and I still had the problem at that time. I shouldn't have to have the drive indexed in order to access it, though.

garysgold · 11 Apr 2009

No you shouldn't. Are you dual booting per chance? I've seen this in various builds when accessing say vista user accts from 7 for the first time. Usually I get a prompt about not having permission, click ok then a UAC type prompt and then the search starts. From then on I have access and don't usually have to wait for the search.

fakeasdf · 11 Apr 2009

It sounds like your alternate hard drives that always in use are going to sleep. Turn off the hard drive sleep in the advanced power settings.
start> power options
click Change plan settings
click Change advanced power settings
under the hard drive section, you can tell it to never turn your hard drives off.

Xax · 12 Apr 2009

garysgold said:

No you shouldn't. Are you dual booting per chance? I've seen this in various builds when accessing say vista user accts from 7 for the first time. Usually I get a prompt about not having permission, click ok then a UAC type prompt and then the search starts. From then on I have access and don't usually have to wait for the search.

I'm dual-booting XP and 7, but only one of my other drives have XP user folders, and this issue is happening across all drives but C:. I have 7 set to never show me UAC-type prompts, but what's puzzling here is the drives will sometimes open just fine, and other times they won't.

fakeasdf said:

It sounds like your alternate hard drives that always in use are going to sleep. Turn off the hard drive sleep in the advanced power settings.
start> power options
click Change plan settings
click Change advanced power settings
under the hard drive section, you can tell it to never turn your hard drives off.

Not a bad idea at all, but my hard drives are set to never turn off.

garysgold · 12 Apr 2009

The problem could be in the properties of the files on the other drives. They don't have to be user files. If XP associated those files with the XP user, then they are owned by that user. When you are in 7, your a new user and you don't have rights to those files. I'd try this Take Ownership Shortcut on the entire partition or on the main folders you need to access or on the ones with locks. Once you have ownership hopefully there'll be no more problems.

johngalt · 12 Apr 2009

If you have been going from build to build, and more importantly, if you have been performing clean installs, it may be more of a permission issue.

I have noticed in performing clean installs for the last 2 builds that my second and third HDs exhibited this more often - the second drive contains all of my 'special' folders, such as Documents, Downloads, etc., and when I tried to move the location of the special folders from the default C:\user\{user name}\... to the second HD, some would simply not move at all. I found out that the drive was registered to an owner based on the SID, not just my user name - so, even though it is me, every subsequent build that I perform a clean install on changes my SID, and thus I have to take ownership of the drive, and in some cases, take ownership of individual folders, and in some even less obvious cases, I had to edit permissions and remove the old user account that had access to it (usually shows up with a red X and the SID as oppose to a user name)....