Red X over my HDD icon

[Rookie]

I just got done building my new system. Ive been messing with windows 7 for 2 days now. Today I was downloading somethings on the interweb trying to get my monitor to display a good picture through the HDMI cable (which is still an unresolved problem.) But anyway I went to My Computer to access my C: drive and I noticed that my other two drive (my storage and backup drive both do not have the OS on them) have a red X over the HDD icons. I did some google searches and they say I have a Trojan Virus. I did an AVG scan and it says I have no threats. So what happened? Do I really have a problem and how can fix it? Also how can I restore the icon to normal? I guess I could format and reinstall windows because I havnt put hardly anything on my drives yet. I would prefer not to I guess I could.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Do you see red X if look at your drives in disk management?

You could go into safe mode with F8 at boot and rescan with both AVG and Malware Bytes (from malwarebytes.org).

Are both of the red X drives external and did they ever operate properly after you installed Windows 7?

 

[RogerR]

Can you actually access these drives? Since the OS is not on them, you can format them without a reinstall.

 

[Rookie]

Ok I checked the drives in Device Manager they all looked good there. I forgot to mention that that the C: drive does not have an X and both of the others are still working properly just with Xs. I ran malwarebytes and it too came up as a clean system. Im really only concerned that if I have a real problem, and I start loading lots of programs and files on it, and then it crashes that would not be a good day! I would like to nip this in the butt early before something bad might happen later! I have attached a screen shot to help people identify with what I'm talking about. Also I have tried formatting the 1TB drive it did say format successful and then I restarted and the X was still there.

 

[RogerR]

Since they are empty, why not try a quick format and see if that resolves the issue?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Do you see red X if look at your drives in disk management?

 

[Rookie]

Do you see red X if look at your drives in disk management?

Sorry ignatzatsonic I miss read your first post and checked the wrong thing. In Disk Management all the drives say "Healthy" with no Xs

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I frankly don't know what the red X means, but if the drivers have nothing on them, I would do what RogerR suggested and reformat them. You can do that directly from Disk Management.



Have these drives ever worked properly, regardless of operating system?

 

[Rookie]

The 500GB and the 1TB drives are new. The 150GB drive is many years old and has always worked fine. As I said before I formatted the 1TB drive and the X did not go away...

 

[Offsprung]

Last time I saw that had to "import foreign". When you say format, did you just format or delete partition and create new and then format?

 

[Rookie]

Actually I realized I had only done a Quick Format. Right now its working on a full format, about 12% done so far. I wasnt given an option to delete partition, I only saw delete volume and I did not do that.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

A volume is a near synonym for partition, so you might want to delete the volumes, create new ones, and then format them. I think technically a volume is partition without an assigned drive letter? But in this case you can think of the two words as synonyms.

 

[Rookie]

Ok when this gets done and it does not work I will try that. Thanks!

 

[Rookie]

Here is the update, I let this storage drive format though the night and then restarted and it was still branded with this X. So this morning I deleted the volume and then set up the new drive though the wizard. When it was all done it still had the X anymore thoughts of what could be going on?

Also was thinking about it, if I format my C: drive and reinstall my copy of windows will my product key still work since Ive already used it once?

 

[Qdos]

You sure you have your chipset drivers properly installed (these act as disk controllers you see)...as this could be fairly important...

Have you used compliant cables to connect these drives (eg; Sata-300 cables for Sata-II spec drives, and not older legacy cables...)

Are there any jumpers on the drives? Either to unlock/restrict a SATA unit from/to SATA-1 standards... or to set a device as Master/Slave on a ribbon cable?

I'd look at these possibilities before all else, given all the aforegoing...

 

[1Bowtie]

One more thing you might look at, go into bios and make sure the drives are turned on. Just a thought.

Smitty

 

[Rookie]

You sure you have your chipset drivers properly installed (these act as disk controllers you see)...as this could be fairly important...

Have you used compliant cables to connect these drives (eg; Sata-300 cables for Sata-II spec drives, and not older legacy cables...)

Are there any jumpers on the drives? Either to unlock/restrict a SATA unit from/to SATA-1 standards... or to set a device as Master/Slave on a ribbon cable?

I'd look at these possibilities before all else, given all the aforegoing...

Ive checked the Chipset drivers and they are up to date. The drives still work so I know they are turned on in the bios. I used the cables that came stock with the MSI motherboard. The cables themselves say Serial ATA mold injected right into the connector. Both my C: drive and the storage Z: drives are SATA 3GB/s connected by these MSI cables. Dose that make them SATA II? Neither have jumper pins in the drives. The Backup drive D: is an older drive connected by an IDE 133 ribbon cable, Drive is set to master and DVD ROM is set to slave. Hope this helps.

 

[Crimson1989]

Hmm, judging from the image, and how it looks on my pc, windows thinks your Z:/ and D:/ drive are network drives. For example, if I'm at school and connected to the network, I have a three network drives on which I can store files. When I'm at home, those network drives are still visible in my computer but also have a red cross like in your picture. Also the icons have like this cilinder like shape beneath them, which means they are network drives. Normally your HDD should look like the icon you have on your C:/ drive, without the windows sign.

Now they look exactly the same as the three drives I have at school. (Apart from the fact that they are listed below my hard drives under the title (network drives).
I've just provided you with some information because I don't really know how to resolve this issue.
Because I'm not familiar with this issue, I think you should just try a few things and see what happens.

First of all, create a restore point, in case anything goes terribly wrong (start and type 'system restore'),

1. Go to start, type 'Computer Management' and open it up. Go to storage, and see if those drives are listed. My external hard drive (1TB) is listed there, yours should, if configured right) See what you can do by right clicking them. (There's an option, mark partition as active, which could work).

2.If above failed right click these drives in windows explorer and see if there's a 'disconnect' option and see what happens. Or right click my computer ' disconnect network drive ' .

3.What you can also do is (because windows things these drives are part of a network), right click my computer - 'properties'. On this page you see your windows edition and information about your system, a bit below that there should be a header ' Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings'. Now, I don't know whether or not you've set up a network, but if you haven't, and there is information about some sort of network, then this should be erased.

These are just a few thought, don't know if they'll be any good. But the possible solution at number 1 would be your best shot.

Good luck and let us know what happens

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Your product key will work regardless of how many installs you make. You may have to reactivate, but you can use the same product key indefinitely.

 

[Rookie]

Hmm, judging from the image, and how it looks on my pc, windows thinks your Z:/ and D:/ drive are network drives. For example, if I'm at school and connected to the network, I have a three network drives on which I can store files. When I'm at home, those network drives are still visible in my computer but also have a red cross like in your picture. Also the icons have like this cilinder like shape beneath them, which means they are network drives. Normally your HDD should look like the icon you have on your C:/ drive, without the windows sign.

Now they look exactly the same as the three drives I have at school. (Apart from the fact that they are listed below my hard drives under the title (network drives).
I've just provided you with some information because I don't really know how to resolve this issue.
Because I'm not familiar with this issue, I think you should just try a few things and see what happens.

First of all, create a restore point, in case anything goes terribly wrong (start and type 'system restore'),

1. Go to start, type 'Computer Management' and open it up. Go to storage, and see if those drives are listed. My external hard drive (1TB) is listed there, yours should, if configured right) See what you can do by right clicking them. (There's an option, mark partition as active, which could work).

2.If above failed right click these drives in windows explorer and see if there's a 'disconnect' option and see what happens. Or right click my computer ' disconnect network drive ' .

3.What you can also do is (because windows things these drives are part of a network), right click my computer - 'properties'. On this page you see your windows edition and information about your system, a bit below that there should be a header ' Computer name, domain, and workgroup settings'. Now, I don't know whether or not you've set up a network, but if you haven't, and there is information about some sort of network, then this should be erased.

These are just a few thought, don't know if they'll be any good. But the possible solution at number 1 would be your best shot.

Good luck and let us know what happens

Crimson1989, thanks for the thoughts. All the drives are marked as "active." I went and checked to see if there is anything on "disconnect network drives" and it says there is nothing avalible to disconnect. Ive also checked to see if there is some sort of network that I didnt make under my computer properties, and there is not.

ignatzatsonic, Thanks for that info.