Can't access hard drive
Last response: in Storage
I am running Windows XP Pro. I have my main hard drive (C: ) and two extra drives (D: & F: ) that i store pictures and music on. Drive E: is my DVD\CD-RW Drive. Both of my drives D: & F: had been working fine until I had a recent problem with my DVD drive. I had noticed that my DVD drive was acting weird, as in starting up with no CD in it, and sometimes would not fucntion properly. So I uninstalled the driver and re-installed and that corrected the problem with the DVD drive. But since that, I cannot access my extra hard drive F:. When I open explore, the drive is visible, but when I try to access it there is nothing. I can right click and select properties and it shows that the information is still there, I just can't access it. In device manager the hard drive is listed and says it is working properly. My other hard drive D: is working fine.
As for solutions I have tried: I have tried updating the driver, but it says I have the most current driver available. Other than that, I have not tried anything else. I do not want to do anyting to lose my data, because I have a ton of pictures on this drive.
Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!
As for solutions I have tried: I have tried updating the driver, but it says I have the most current driver available. Other than that, I have not tried anything else. I do not want to do anyting to lose my data, because I have a ton of pictures on this drive.
Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks!
More about : access hard drive
My guess is that, when you uninstalled and re-installed the DVD unit, Windows got confused about which letter belongs to which drive unit. You may be able to fix this in Disk Management. To be safe I'll advise two or three steps.
Click on Start at lower left and RIGHT-click on My Computer. From the mini-menu choose Manage to open a new window. In its left pane click on Disk Management. Now look at the LOWER RIGHT pane, which scrolls to reveal all its contents. Each drive unit in your system is represented by a horizontal block. On its left end is a label of info, so look there for your malfunctioning unit. To the right of that is a sub-block representing one Partition on that HDD unit (often the entire space on the unit), and it also will have some info on it like its Volume Name (words), its letter name assigned by Windows like "E:", a size, a File System like NTFS, and a status. Find the one that you can't use right now. RIGHT-click on it and choose to Change its letter name. Change it to something you are not using, like "N:". Next, take a quick look at the letter assigned to the DVD unit. Is it what you want? If not, don't do anything yet, but just make a mental note. Now back out of Disk Management and reboot the machine so Windows can update its Registry settings.
Go back into Disk Management. IF you want to change the name for the DVD drive, now is the time. RIGHT-click on it, change to what you want, back out, and reboot again.
If you are NOT changing the DVD letter name, just go back to the HDD you renamed earlier. Now re-name it again, to the letter you want it to be. Back out and reboot. Hopefully by forcing Windows to re-write the corrected info about the letter name in its Registry, you will have solved the problem and it will appear properly in My Computer where you can access it.
Click on Start at lower left and RIGHT-click on My Computer. From the mini-menu choose Manage to open a new window. In its left pane click on Disk Management. Now look at the LOWER RIGHT pane, which scrolls to reveal all its contents. Each drive unit in your system is represented by a horizontal block. On its left end is a label of info, so look there for your malfunctioning unit. To the right of that is a sub-block representing one Partition on that HDD unit (often the entire space on the unit), and it also will have some info on it like its Volume Name (words), its letter name assigned by Windows like "E:", a size, a File System like NTFS, and a status. Find the one that you can't use right now. RIGHT-click on it and choose to Change its letter name. Change it to something you are not using, like "N:". Next, take a quick look at the letter assigned to the DVD unit. Is it what you want? If not, don't do anything yet, but just make a mental note. Now back out of Disk Management and reboot the machine so Windows can update its Registry settings.
Go back into Disk Management. IF you want to change the name for the DVD drive, now is the time. RIGHT-click on it, change to what you want, back out, and reboot again.
If you are NOT changing the DVD letter name, just go back to the HDD you renamed earlier. Now re-name it again, to the letter you want it to be. Back out and reboot. Hopefully by forcing Windows to re-write the corrected info about the letter name in its Registry, you will have solved the problem and it will appear properly in My Computer where you can access it.
Your too short on info, what HDD's are we talking about IDE or SATA and what sizes, are those partitions or actual drives, what exactly do you see when you mean properties said your data is there does it show up how much is used out of how much? Your partition table might need repairing. Did you try reinstalling the driver for the F: drive?, what does disk manager show you?
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