HDD partitions missing in Win XP

Spy king

Adept
Oct 16, 2005
660
11
82
Hello!

My Secondry HDD (WD 500gb) seems to be suddenly missing from the Device manager/Disk management/Explorer.

It is recognised by the bios though..

What could be the issue?
Thanks!
 

amul_capri

Disciple
Jun 18, 2007
108
14
82
Any one of these could work:

1) Try scrolling down a bit on the right side pane of the Disk Management. Maybe its down there and you haven't noticed.

2) Device Manager->Drives->Scan for hardware changes.

3) Install XP drivers for AHCI from your mobo cd.
 

XTechManiac

Adept
May 1, 2010
932
80
41
30
Kolkata
Wooho! Seems like an era of HDD partition missing problem have started in TE.. :p

Anyways, all you can do is try softwares such as Find & Mount, GetDataBack, EaseUS Data Recovery Software etc.

P.S. You'll need another HDD with 500GB+ free space to perform recovery process. Use the data recovery software to recover the data on the 2nd HDD. Don't recover your data on the HDD in which your partitions are missing, otherwise the recovery process will be affected.

Good Luck! :)
 

vishalk

Adept
Mar 15, 2005
781
24
81
Hi,

It seems u might have a bad or curropt file system or a boot table, i would reccon u run scandisk in the command prompt with the help of the following link to see if it solves the problem,

Check for Disk Errors in Windows XP

I would also reccon that you use the following link and see if it helps

Description of the Windows XP Recovery Console for advanced users

If none of the above works in ur favour, download PTDT, Partition Table Doctor, it can do the job for u.

Free Download Data Recovery Software, Data Backup Software, Partition Manager Software - EASEUS Products.
 

Spy king

Adept
Oct 16, 2005
660
11
82
I was just going through the logs from the even viewer, and here is what I got..

Code:
Event Type:	Warning

Event Source:	Ftdisk

Event Category:	Disk 

Event ID:	57

Date:		9/1/2010

Time:		1:55:34 PM

User:		N/A

Description:

The system failed to flush data to the transaction log. Corruption may occur.

Data:

0000: 00 00 00 00 01 00 be 00   ......¾.

0008: 02 00 00 00 39 00 04 80   ....9..€

0010: 00 00 00 00 0e 00 00 c0   .......À

0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........

Code:
Event Type:	Error

Event Source:	PlugPlayManager

Event Category:	None

Event ID:	12

Date:		9/1/2010

Time:		1:55:34 PM

User:		N/A

Description:

The device 'WDC WD5000AADS-56S9B0' (IDE\DiskWDC_WD5000AADS-56S9B0___________________01.00A01\5&2aa92c33&0&0.0.0) disappeared from the system without first being prepared for removal.

Data:

0000: 00 00 00 00               ....

Also, the WD bootable tool was unable to read the SMART information from the drive..

Is it time for RMA?
 

vishalk

Adept
Mar 15, 2005
781
24
81
Hi,

On doing some rnd about ur issue, i have found,

This event may occur if NTFS could not write data to

the transaction log. This could affect the ability of NTFS to stop or roll

back the operations for which the transaction data could not be written.

If this message appears frequently, run Chkdsk to repair the file system.

To do so:

1. Click Start, click Run, type "cmd" (without the quotation marks) and

press ENTER.

2. At the command prompt, type "chkdsk /R /X Drive". Chkdsk runs and

automatically repairs the volume. Repeat this step for each volume on the

disk. If the following message appears, type Y.

"Cannot lock current drive, Chkdsk cannot run because the volume is in use

by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked

the next time the system restarts?"

The next time the computer is started, Chkdsk will automatically run.

I hope the above information helps.
 

XTechManiac

Adept
May 1, 2010
932
80
41
30
Kolkata
Spy king said:
I can't access the drive from the command prompt :( so can't run chkdsk too.. :(

I think your HDD partitions were deleted accidentally, thats the reason command prompt is unable to access the drive. Try recovering the partitions by the softwares suggested by me in earlier post.
 

Spy king

Adept
Oct 16, 2005
660
11
82
I just tried the partition recovery software, no luck.. none of them recognise the disc at all.. The disc is not even recognised by the device manager..
 

Spy king

Adept
Oct 16, 2005
660
11
82
yay! Got the drive and all it's data to show up back on the OS!

Ubuntu refused to boot claiming an I/O error on the second disc, So did a full media scan after the quick test returned a SMART error code using the bootable WD diagnostic tool..

It claimed that there were some errors on the drive which it repaired, so now all's okay!

Thanks for all the help!