Advice needed re. Page File

[gregrocker]

There are no drive letters using PW Boot disk which is why I specified to use the Home Edition.

If that fails try assiging it from an Elevated Command Prompt:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...(v=ws.10).aspx

 

[martinlest]

Oh, OK, my mistake. Sorry. Will try again.

 

[martinlest]

OK, installed the Home Edition (I can see why you recommend this software!) and the drives are back to how they should be, so thanks again for the suggestions.

However, Disk Management console still shows the same partition with no information apart from the size, as above, and when you right-click and choose an option, the same error message. And in that 'blank' partition, 'Open' and 'Explore' are greyed out. Is this perhaps a problem with the Disk Management console rather than the drive? As far as I recall, the console relies on the Virtual Disk service (no?) - which is running and set to 'Manual'.

But since all the other partitions show OK in DM...??

 

[gregrocker]

Can you access the files on those partitions in Windows Explorer? Are they lettered correctly there?

If so I'd wait for Disk Mgmt to catch up.

Just to be sure run a full Disk Check on all partitions (Check File System in PW Home Edition) and SFC /SCANNOW Command to check the System files are in order.

 

[martinlest]

For some reason, having set all the drive letters in PW so that they were correct and checking that Explorer saw the same information, after rebooting the drive letters switched again, in PW and Explorer. I took screenshots to check. Also there was one drive (different ones) missing in Explorer each time I rebooted! (This is why I need a brandy to do this! I so often seem to be unlucky in this sort of thing).

I have done this three times now and (thankfully!!!) the last time I rebooted the drive letters stayed the same, with all the right drive labels. The 'G' drive is still blank and in accessible in DM though. How odd.

I'll post back re. progress.. Meanwhile, thanks again for the help. Much appreciated. If you have any ideas in the meantime about the Disk Management console...

Martin

 

[gregrocker]

This behavior requires confiming the HD integrity.

What were the results of each partition's Disk Check?

In addition I'd run the PW HD Surface Scan on each HD.

 

[martinlest]

Haven't done it yet. Getting late here in London, so may do it tomorrow. I'll just check rather than check and fix for now, so I can see what I am dealing with. Will post back tomorrow with results anyway.

 

[gregrocker]

The PW Surface Scan cannot repair, so if indications point toward bad HD run the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan.

These tests are for your HD's, not SSD which has separate diagnostics.

 

[martinlest]

No problems reported with any of the chkdsk or surface scans. Just that strange blank entry for that one partition in DM.

Rebooted this morning, and the drive letters for the two partitions E and G have all been swapped over again. Why won't they stay as I put them? It messes up a lot of links and batch file scripts.

 

[martinlest]

The two partitions swap drive letters at every single reboot. Am clearly going to spend the day Googling but help here much appreciated! This only started of course after using Partition manager toadd free space to the partitions yesterday - never had any problem like this before.

 

[martinlest]

BTW, each time I reboot, DM shows two different setups. One time this:

Disk 0 (SSD): 1. System reserved 100MBs 2. C: 65GBs 3. X: 46GBs
Disk 1 (SATA): 1. E: 258GBs 3. F: 674GBs
Disk 2 (SSD): 1. D: 112GBs
Disk 3 (SATA): 1. 258GBs 3. H: 674GBs

next time this:

Disk 0 (SATA): 1. G: 258GBs 2. F: 674GBs
Disk 1 (SSD): 1. D: 112GBs
Disk 2 (SATA): 1. 258GBs 2. H: 674GBs
Disk 3 (SSD): 1. System reserved 100MBs 2. C: 65GBs 3. X: 46GBs

Alternately, it is 'E' and 'G' which have no drive letter in DM :-(

Formatting the two partitions in question would not be a huge problem, but isn't the problem somewhere in the registry/boot record? Pointless to format the two partitions if so. (If absolutely necessary I could copy over data from all four partitions on the two SATA drives and then delete all the partition information on them and start again, though not sure if I have that amount of space on external drives to keep the data safe).

 

[gregrocker]

Perhaps if you switch the mobo ports then it would sort itself.

In particular we always like to see if possible the OS drive plugged into Disk0 in Disk Mgmt so that the System boot files can't be derailed to a preceding Primary partition during Repairs or Reinstall. But this may not be possible if you've carefully chosen the port for your SSD, as you should.

 

[martinlest]

Hi. Thanks for getting back to this. I am getting a bit worried about it by this stage!

You mean switch the SATA connectors round? I would think that this is my fault in making the wrong connection, as one of the SATA drives is brand new and has only been in the PC a few days and I may have connected the two drives up wrongly. (I didn't touch the SSDs). But ... there was no problem before I did the partitioning yesterday, so I don't think the SATA connections can be the cause. I could try.

It's a while since I did this. Which connector on the ribbon am I supposed to use? Would it matter, given that neither drive has a boot/active partition?

By the way, DISKPART sees all my partitions except for partition 1 on disk 3, which is says does not exist. I guess that is the 'blank' partition (in DM) in question.

Is there any point (before I start opening up the PC case again) in removing the 'faulty' E/G partition completely and reformatting it? I could even wipe the whole drive if that would help, as I can back up the data and copy it back (though that'd be a long process with drives that are 1TB in size). I'll bow to your far greater experience in this filed!!

 

[gregrocker]

I've asked for some hardware expertise on this.

 

[martinlest]

Thanks. I really appreciate your input!!

Meanwhile, I thought it was worth trying to delete the partition and then create a new one. It's formatting now (I unchecked Quick Format so it's going to take a while)). I am not optimistic this is going to fix anything, as I don't believe that the problem is with the partition itself, but apart from having to copy over a few hundred gigabytes of data, there's nothing to lose..

But WHY does my boot drive, the first SSD, change from Disk 0 to Disk 3 and back again every time I reboot?

 

[gregrocker]

Can you Explore the drive missing a letter in Disk Mgmt, PW Home or PW boot CD to see if its data is there?

Was Disk Check or PW Check File System was able to run on that partition?

I would still run the maker's HD Diagnostic extended CD scan on the HD to know its condition for sure.

 

[martinlest]

Yes, I checked that partition with PW and there were no errors.

Anyway, as I say, I deleted it in DM, created a new partition, formatted it .. and now all the attributes show again in DM. I copied across all the folders from backup and so far it seems to be behaving normally. The drive letters don't change when I reboot now - at least they haven't the last 4 or 5 times I have tried it.

The only thing now is that the SSD drive with my C drive is no longer marked as Disk 0. It's Disk 3. Does that matter?

 

[gregrocker]

So the SSD was originally Disk0 in Disk Mgmt? I hadn't seen this mentioned before, only the screenshot showing it as Disk3 which is a concern as I just expressed.

If this is the case then having the OS HD change positions could have caused the data partitions to fluctuate as they were, too. There is a protocol by which the BIOS orders the HD's which I will try to find, or perhaps one of the hardware experts I asked to review this can explain it and its possible relation to your issue there.

 

[martinlest]

OK, that's great. I'm subscribed to the thread of course so will pick up any information on that as soon as you post it.

Thanks again - it's very good of you to give your time here and offer help like this.

Martin

 

[gregrocker]

Glad to help it, Martin. We have a great team here who have made this the top tech site on the web for years now.