Second Hard Drive Not Appearing in Explorer

[dw85745]

In my BIOS (which is a new American Megatrends GUI which I dislike with a passion) I show three physical drives.
I have adjusted the boot order for my primary (SATA), my second hard drive (IDE with an IDE to SATA convertor running through USB), and my CD.

When I go into Explorer, I see my Primary Drive and My CD (if a disk is in the carriage).

However, my second drive does NOT show in Explorer.

-------------------------------------------------
QUESTON:

How do I get my second drive to show in Explorer?

 

[alexgrossman]

Well, try connecting the second hard drive externally and see if you may able to see it in Explorer. Also, keep your spy eye under Disk Management and see if the second hard drive is seen. If so, consider formatting it (do check your backup first) and see if that helps you access second hard drive in explorer.

Do let us know your progress!!

 

[dw85745]

try connecting the second hard drive externally

That is how it is connected.

And it shows under CP > Device Manager > Disk Drives

consider formatting it

No way, one of my backups. I used this to install the new drive.
Will try setting drive in legacy mode in the BIOS and see what happens.

 

[CKWD]

Hello dw85745!

Can you post a screenshot from Disk Management? If the drive is shown there and says it's Unallocated, that means it needs reformatting.
Since that drive already contains information, then it could have lost its partition(s).
Also, can you try to connect the drive internally?
Additionally, check if you have all of your USB and chipset drivers.

Hope any of this helps!

CK_WD

 

[dw85745]

CKWD thanks for the help.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Can you post a screenshot

Drive shows offline so I'm pretty sure that is why Explorer does Not see it.

If need can post pictures -- but info is a follows:

Tab General: Device is Working Properly
Tab Policies: Quick Removal
Tab Volumes: (after populating show)
Disk : Disk1
Type : Basic
Status: Offline "<<< Most like reason Not showing in Explorer
Partition Style: MBR

Tab Driver: Microsoft dated 6/21/2006 version 6.1.7600.16385
Tab Details: Clicking up some of the properties bring up some value -- to many properties to list

Since that drive already contains information, then it could have lost its partition(s).

I doubt is as copied from it a few days ago to do a new Windows 7 install

you try to connect the drive internally?

As stated this is an IDE drive which has an IDE to Sata convertor. No IDE connector this board.
So whether Externally or Internally mounted doesn't matter.

Additionally, check if you have all of your USB and chipset drivers.

Am running through a USB 3.0 which should also support USB 2.0. And USB 3.0 driver is installed.
Will try moving to USB 2.0 and post back unless you know why offline?

 

[CKWD]

I assumed lost partition(s) as this is most often the cause for the problem you're having, or at least as I have seen, and it usually happens quite suddenly, today it's working – tomorrow it's not. So the new Windows install from a few days ago is not that big of a factor in this case. But then the disk would be given as Unallocated, not as Offline as it is yours.

Can you click on the spot where it says the disk is Offline, in Disk Management, does it have the option Online?

Cheers!

CK_WD

 

[dw85745]

Can you click on the spot where it says the disk is Offline, in Disk Management, does it have the option Online?

Clicking the work "Offline" {I assume this is what you want} does not change it to "Online"

Regarding Screen shots

-- did them in "*.bmp" format since smaller than jpg but see forum doesn't support.
If needed will convert.

==========================

QUESTION:

Will WD tools from CD allow me to see the drive and evaluate it since it is running through a USB and then the IDE {drive} to SATA {MOBO} convertor?

Had tried the other day to download the other WD tools but something was blocking the download.
With all this new security UEFI and UAC, not sure what the system is doing most of the time.

 

[pbcopter]

Did you right click the area in Disk Management where Offline is displayed? It will preset a menu to allow setting it to online.

 

[CKWD]

I did actually mean right clicking on the Offline drive in Disk Management, that's where the options usually are.
Sorry, perhaps I should've been more specific.
It should have the Online option.

If you don't have that option you could do the following:

1. Open an elevated command prompt
2. Type diskpart
3. In it type list disk
4. Then type select disk 1 and then enter
6. You should see Disk 1 is now the selected disk.
7. Now type online and enter

Well, the WD tools are there to work usually no matter how your drive's connected. But I doubt you'll be able to do something with them to make your drive visible again. There's a scanning tool, a back up tool etc., depends which you have.

Good luck!

CK_WD

 

[dw85745]

CKWD:

Thank you for staying with me on this.
Followed the CMD instructions

Shows Disk 0 Online
Disk 1 Offline

Shows: Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

After typing online I get:

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7601

DISK - Online a disk that is currently marked as offline
VOLUME -Online a volume that is currently marked as offline

Going into CP again and repopulating, the drive is still offline.

=======================
BTW I'm running the drives from the BIOS in legacy mode not UEFI when I followed your CMD instructions

QUESTIONS.
Will it make any difference?
Will updating the driver help since it is stamped "2006"

COMMENT
Maybe I need to move to a different OS. Had nothing but problems since upgrading from XP.



.

 

[CKWD]

You're welcome, but let's see what we can do further.
Try this:
1. retype in Diskpart everything till you get the message
2. after you get it, type "disk online"
3. you should see a confirming message that Disk 1 is online
4. check again with list disk

Then see how the drive is showing up in Disk Management and please post a screenshot!

CK_WD

Edit: It shouldn't be that big of a difference the mode in which you're running, but updating drivers always helps!

 

[dw85745]

Again Thanks

Still Offline.

Re Pics: Just realized the old ScreenGrab program I'm using (have source) won't save in JPG only BMP.
Never realized this forum (fairly new to it) would not accept BMP.
Will have to rewrite code to save in JPG, which is another thing ToDo.

If you can bear with me without pics, I'll see if their is a new driver and install it and see what happens.
unless you have a better suggestion.





Will try driver upgrade.

 

[CKWD]

Hmm, this is kind of strange, the diskpart method with the additional information I gave in a second post should have worked.

Well, do try with updating drivers and then you can do a System restore to a point/date you know that everything was fine.

One more thing, what does the drive show you in BIOS?

CK_WD

 

[dw85745]

Tried to Upgrade Driver. M$ says it is the latest.

Where do we go from here??
I need to take a break for about 1/2 an hour as reached my frustration level.


Will post BIOS info then since I will have to reboot. But based on
what I recall it shows just the WD drive model for each drive.
If designated UEFI that is appended in front.
As I posted previous, configured the IDE drive for legacy, but
had the same issues when designated UEFI.

This is a new American Megatrends BIOS which I dislike tremendously.
Has a GUI interface which is very busy (whoever designed forgot the KISS method)
Will take the old keyboard BIOS any day over it.

Thanks for all your efforts and time on my behalf.
Will check in, in 1/2 hour and see if you have the time to assist with anything additional.
If not, have an nice day and Happy Holidays to you and yours.

David

 

[CKWD]

David, I understand your frustration, I will have to do some research on this issue so that I can help you further. If I am not present in a half an hour I shall post back in a few hours, but I will be back.

Meanwhile, yes, post your BIOS information on the drives you have and how they're displayed, convert the images (if you can and have the time, of course) to post them here and after all, try and do the System Restore. It is a good last resort that not many people, facing PC problems, think of.

Cheers and happy holidays from me too!

CK_WD

 

[dw85745]

ckwd:

Thanks for staying with me.
Like yourself have some errands to run and want to check with someone who may have some input.

do the System Restore

The problem with that is this is a brand new build. About 4 days old.
After about 2 days of effort was finally able to copy the IDE drive (which I'm trying to access now) to the new hard drive and install windows 7. I had Windows 7 on the old machine and the IDE drive but M$ (as far as I understand) makes no provisions for updating All new hardware. So I copied both partitions on the IDE to the new WD Sata and installed Windows.
That worked. I then started reinstalling my old software. I have a number of programs I wrote which I use daily and ran into some problems with them working. Again an M$ problems. Finally got all those up and running and then one of my databases (which is ACCESS and which worked fine for years) had me locked out (a key shows on the DB name in Explorer). So figured if I could see what differences if any between files on the old drive and the new I might get it resolved.. Now problems getting to that drive.

Will probably move to SQLite if I can get this database up and going. ACCESS has worked great for me for years but M$ seems to be deprecating everything that I used and I'm getting tired of looking into a black box and guessing what I need to do to fix it.

==============================

So confused over what the BIOS is doing versus Windows 7.
The new American Megatrend BIOS has something called a CSM (Compatibilty and Support Module).
However this does NOT apply to each drive individually BUT rather the setting are for a grouping.
E.G> Boot Devices, Storage Devices, Network Devices, etc.
You then have a choice to set each group to Legacy, UEFI (if I remember the term correctly), or some combination thereof.

Why they didn't let you set compability for each drive is beyond me.

How this affects each drive is unknown and what impact it has on the OS is also unknown at this time.
My guess is it set some flag in the BIOS which Windows uses to set the security level (maybe the MBR or some Windows driver during load).

I do know when I was able to transfer the drive I finally got it to work with a Legacy setting. Wrote all the specifics down so can post if needed.

I'll be back in about 4 hours (I'm on Mountain Standard Time). Will check my email for your post and hopefully we can exchange info then or sometime shortly later.

David

 

[Wandering one]

To the O/P Regarding screen shots. W7 has this built in, go programs / accessories / snipping tool . Easy to use and saves as JPEG Art.

 

[dw85745]

Wandering one:

Great suggestion, was NOT aware of it. Again thanks.

David

 

[CKWD]

Hi David!

Sorry for the delay!

I have to admit that new ideas are not quite coming to me.
It looks like you are also having a lot of trouble with the OS.

I may repeat myself, sorry for that, but I think you need to connect your drive in the motherboard directly through an IDE to SATA, but not USB powered. I don't believe we have proof that the USBs are working correctly either, though it seems they have all of their latest drivers.
For a drive to show Ofline, it usually is a Dynamic disk. MS Press Windows 7 Inside/Out says the "Offline" status only appears on such Dynamic disks. It also has been seen a lot with external drives, that's why I suggested you connecting it with the adapter in the motherboard. It is possible, just instead of the USB connection you use the motherboard ports directly with an IDE to SATA adapter.
The ways to reactivate such an Offline drive is by either right clicking on it in Disk Management and selecting Online/Reactivate, or through the diskpart commands I gave here in two posts.
This is an important line from a short article on the topic: "A dynamic disk may become Offline if it is corrupted or intermittently unavailable. A dynamic disk may also become Offline if you attempt to import a foreign (dynamic) disk and the import fails. Only dynamic disks display the Offline status."

Reactivate a missing or offline dynamic disk: Storage Services; Local File Systems

You could also try running these action in UEFI, since in Legacy mode it didn't work. But in my opinion, the most important is to connect the drive directly. You could even first try it on a different PC, see if it will work.

I am sorry for repeating myself, but there really aren't other options as this is when a disk becomes Offline and that is how it should be fixed.

Good luck!

CK_WD

P.S.: Yes, the Snipping Tools is quite useful, I too forgot about it. You could use it.

 

[Layback Bear]

These tutorial should help.


By Brink:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

By Golden:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

--------------------------------------

These two tutorial will help you fill in your system specs so these good folks trying to help you know what they are working with.By Brink:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/180324-system-info-see-your-system-specs.html

By Kari:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/311593-speccy-publish-snapshot-your-system-specs.html