drive not seen in disk management

I saw this same question asked on another group about a month
ago...but there were no replies.
Now I have the same situation.

I wanted to backup some data...
so I popped a spare drive (know good) in an XP machine I was working on.

The drive (80 gig) is seen just fine by the bios
and if I look in the control panel...there it is...
no problems with it.

But nope...disk management does not see it at all


tried both IDE channels and all jumper configurations


CS master and slave

nothing

This is normal for an unformatted drive.

If the drive is not partitioned...it will not show up in Windows
Explorer...
but it will (or should) show up in Disk Management...
after all, that's how you partition and format a new auxiliary drive.

In all the years I've been working on computers...this is a new one for me.


I guess there must just be something odd about that particular drive
as since I've posted...I tried another drive and it's recognized it normally

First step would be, what is in Device Manager ? There should
be a "trail of bread crumbs" left as a result of the new hardware
wizard finding a drive that wasn't present previously. See if
there is an entry in Device Manager for it.

The file "setupapi.log" has some info from the work of the
new hardware wizard. Examine the tail end of that file for
recent changes.

If there is some evidence it is present in Device Manager, your
next step might be the port of "dd".

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

dd --list

The output from that command, shows both raw disk and partitions.
As the info on that web page shows, \\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0
represents a whole, raw disk. Partition1 is the first partition
on the disk, so references to Partition1 imply a partition is
recognized. If a disk only had a Partition0 entry, it could be
that the MBR is empty or badly corrupted.

Using that port of dd, you could attempt to copy the MBR to a file.
For example

dd if=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 of=mbr.bin bs=512 count=1

What that would do, is copy the first sector of Harddisk0 to the
file mbr.bin and place it in the current working directory of
your "DOS window". You can then examine the file with a hex
editor. The last two bytes would contain "aa55", the signature
that is meant to imply that some previous tool loaded a
valid MBR in there. If the last two bytes aren't a signature like
that, then somehow the MBR isn't valid (was never loaded in the
first place, or has been erased at some point).

If the four primary partition entries in that table were corrupt,
maybe that would be why Disk Management is playing dumb.

If you want to erase the MBR, giving Windows permission to start
over again, this would be an example of how to do it. This
wipes sector zero of Harddisk0. Of course, you have to use the
info in "dd --list" including sizes and the like, to be sure
you're pointing this command at the correct disk.

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 bs=512 count=1

And if you accidentally pointed the previous command at the wrong
disk, and wiped out the MBR, the program "TestDisk" can recompute
the 64 bytes worth of primary partition info, while the Windows
Recovery Console "fixmbr" can put back the necessary 446 bytes
of boot code.

I am familiar with the dd command
but if there is no drive there is nothing for dd to operate on

Again...no matter what...the drive should have been seen in Disk
Management...but it's not there..so from Windows there is nothing to
operate on.

I think I'll keep fooling with it though...

[hxl7]

Sorry to hear about your problem ... I have it, too !

New Win7 system.

Took my 2 Seagate Barracuda drives from my old computer and attached one of them to my new computer via external USB. The first drive was instantly recognized.

I shut down the computer. Attached the other drive in the same way. Booted up. Drive not found in Explorer. In Disk Management, it is seen as Dynamic, Offline, Invalid.

So, I replaced both drives in the old computer. Booted up. Both drives were recognized as always before.

Shut down the old computer. Removed drives and tried them again via external USB and the same problem occurred. The one drive is recognized. The other identical drive is not.

PLEASE HELP ! This is "driving" me nuts !!!! ;-)

Thank you. -Bill

When the disk is in the old computer, what does Disk Management say about it ?

Is is "dynamic" there ?

*******

You can learn more about dynamic here, if that is what you've done.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_disk_manager

I don't use Dynamic disks on my systems, as I prefer the simplicity
of Basic disks. What has happened to me, is I might use Disk Management
to prepare a new disk, and notice it was made Dynamic. I don't leave
it like that, and do whatever is necessary to make it Basic again.

There is nothing wrong with using Dynamic disks, as long as you
understand how to handle them (which I don't). Being unable to access
the data, while the disk is on another system, is just one of the tiny
details of using them (i.e. understanding what needs to be fixed). Since
I don't need the hassle, if I catch a disk being Dynamic, I back up
whatever is on there and fix it. Using Basic disks, I can then be
less concerned about what happens when the disk is moved.

IT support staff probably use features like that extensively, because
it can allow extremely large volumes to be built. In a non-home
environment, there is probably more justification to be using it.

The dynamic disk has metadata on it, that in theory should survive
transplantation to another system. If you spanned two disks together,
maybe the disks only "make sense" if both disks are moved at the
same time. I don't like complexity enough, to be trying stuff like
that. For example, if I used dynamic disks and spanned two hard
drives, would my Linux LiveCD understand the data contents, and
allow me to look at them ? My setup here, emphasizes portability
over all else, and my Basic disks can be seen no matter what OS
I'm currently using.

[hxl7]

Paul,
Thanks so much for your reply.
I think you're absolutely correct.
The other disk when connected to the USB port is Basic.
I have no idea how the one was set to Dynamic. It is also
indicated as Invalid. When I try to Reactivate, the error
message says that can't happen on an Invalid disk pack.
Well, at least I know now what the issue is.
Thanks, again!
Bill