One hard drive, and my DVD drive not shown?

nhdiesel · 22 Dec 2010

I have a similar problem as a previous thread, with a little bit of a difference. My PC has 3 hard drives and one DVD drive. I can see 2 of the hard drives in Libraries, but not the 3rd hard drive, or the DVD drive. If I go into Computer Management, they are shown, but say "No Media", and the internal hard drive is shown as "removable".

It won't let me right click anything except to access Properties or Change Drive Letters/Paths. These drives were working until fairly recently, but the hard drive was the first to give me problems. Sometimes it wouldn't show up, and rebooting the PC would let it show up. Now, however, that no longer works. I have data on that drive I really want to keep, so formatting it is not an option. And of course, I can't format a DVD drive.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Jim

whs · 22 Dec 2010

The DVD and the HDD may be different problems - maybe. Try this:

For the DVD, see whether this helps: Your CD drive or DVD drive is missing or is not recognized by Windows or other programs

For the disk have a look in Disk Management first and see what it says there. If appropriate, post a snip of your Disk Management.

And as a general catch all, you could try to run sfc /scannow in elevated command prompt.

fimble · 22 Dec 2010

With regards the DVD, in (Windows) Explorer, on the Menu bar click Tools > Folder Options... > View. Is 'Hide empty drives in the computer folder' ticked?

nhdiesel · 22 Dec 2010

Thanks for the reply. Here is a snip of the disk manager:

One hard drive, and my DVD drive not shown?-driveissue.jpg

Jim

whs · 22 Dec 2010

That is indeed a very strange Disk Management view. But at least you still seem to have a drive letter (H) for that disk. You could try to run chkdsk H: /f /r in elevated cmd. Maybe it finds the straggler and can fix it. And try also what I suggested above.

nhdiesel · 22 Dec 2010

When I did the first suggestion, it said it did not find any integrity violations. When I did what you suggested in your second reply, I got the message "cannot open volume for direct access".

And before anyone asks...since this problem started, I have run several scans with AVG and Ad-Aware. I also use Zonealarm.

Jim

whs · 23 Dec 2010

Jim, that's too bad. I am sorry that we cannot make any headway, but I am running out of ideas. Maybe another member has some new ideas. I will post it on the "help" thread - so don't give up.

jfar · 23 Dec 2010

Hi, launch Explorer, click Organise> Folder and search Options > View > and clear "Hide empty drives in the computer folder" to get your empty drives back., I hope this helps you.

whs · 23 Dec 2010

One suggestion that was made by Carl is that you get rid of your security setup. Zonealarm apparently has caused problems in the past. Also AVG and Adaware together may not play well. I suggest you replace all that by MSE and Superantispyware for scanning.

nhdiesel · 23 Dec 2010

Thank you both, we are making some progress. Fimble & jfar's suggestion got my DVD back, and my hard drive is now showing up in Explorer. Unfortunately, its still showing up as a removable drive, and shows that there is no disk in it. Its a 500gb drive, and it has about 450gb of files on it.

Edit: I just saw your last post. I've used these products for years and never had a problem. Our other PC (actually a laptop) has no problems running win. 7 and these products. They were suggested to me by pros in the industry and I trust them.

I may just have a problem with the hard drive. I think I'll pull it and use a USB cable I have and see if it shows up then, or try hooking it to the laptop with the USB cable. (its a USB to SATA cable).

I appreciate the help.

(edited to give thanks where due ;-)