Partition Disappeared on Presario !

Discussion in 'Software' started by Dumb_Question, Feb 13, 2014.

  1. Dumb_Question

    Dumb_Question Sergeant Major

    Problem: a disk partition on an external USB disk is not being recognised on one PC.

    I have a WD MyPassport external USB hard disk. It is divided into two partitions or logical drives. It

    came like that new. One is a 'virtual CD' (614 MB) which contains WD's Smartware software, in

    particular WD Smartware.exe, a file for "setting up Smartware". The other partition (around 320GB, the

    rest of the disk) was empty when new, but it has about 100GB of files on it now. I have copied and

    deleted some files, around 10GB, once every month (about) for I don't know, lets say 3 years. It last

    worked on my Presario S5160UK as usual 15.Jan.2014 IIRC. When I came to use it at the end

    of Jan/start of February, the 'data partition' had disappeared, not even recognised by the USB hardware

    manager, let alone (file) explorer or DiskManagement. With this problem appeared the (Windows)

    message 'WD Smartware This program has encountered an error and is exiting'. Since that day this has

    happened every time I tried plugging it into any of 4 USB ports on the Presario S5160UK.

    When I connect the disk to my Pavilion a705.uk (XP/SP3) or my Pavilion dm4 (Windows 7) the disk

    behaves as expected, I can see both partitions, and my data appears to be present and correct. I do not

    get a Smartware error.

    It appears that the Presario S5160UK tries to run Smartware set up as soon as the virtual CD is

    recognised, and then I get the error. I speculate that PC stops looking for virtual disks on that physical

    disk at that point. In explorer I can see the virtual CD. Double clicking on that as if to open it causes

    Smartware.exe (set up program) to run, and I get the same error. To look in the vCD I need to right click

    on the vCD icon in explorer, and select 'Explore' or 'Open'.

    This seems to be a computer related problem, but no other hard disk I have has it (but then no other has

    the Smartware vCD or WD Software).

    I have contacted WD who were unable, ultimately, to help. They could only suggest backing up my data,

    and reformatting the whole disk by the time I had been through every other option suggested.

    In the light of WDs being unable to suggest anything more, and it seeming to be a computer problem, I

    wondered if any Major Geeks (or any other ranks) might be able to help.

    Dumb_Question
    13.February.2014
    Compaq Presario S5160UK DT261A under XP/SP3
    Processor - Celeron 2.7 GHz
    Motherboard - MSI MS-6577 v2.1
    RAM - 1GB + 512MB (1GB +1GB max) DDR PC2700
    PSU - Octigen 300W model 10270PSOTG ('upgraded' from original Bestec 250W PSU [in 2011?])
    Nvidia GeForce 6200 graphics card in AGP slot.
     
  2. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Hi DQ

    What I would try on the PC affected is to open up Device Manager and navigate to the Universal Serial Bus Controllers and open the + then plug in the USB HDD and note the USB Mass Storage Driver that it loads, this is the USB devices reference, right click it and uninstall, then unplug the USB drive and re=plug it in and the driver should load again, then see if the partition is viewable.

    *note do not have any other USB storage devices plugged in, just makes finding the correct Mass driver easier*
     
  3. Dumb_Question

    Dumb_Question Sergeant Major

    Thank you SO much David, this has enabled to see my 'lost' partition with data intact, and has facilitated Smartware to work properly again (I do not get the error message, and the first window of that opens, giving me the choice whether to install or not).

    ISSUE SOLVED ! :)

    It was simpler than I expected as well, which is why I had had not tried it before (I did think of uninstalling and re-installing USB drivers before).

    Now to the next (WD) problem :( : Device cannot be ejected because it is (ALWAYS) busy (sigh) [I think I have posted on this topic also, and exchanged 15 or so messages with WD support, and contacted AVG support as well - to no avail - sometimes the WD disks eject fine, sometimes they do not]

    Dumb_Question
    15.February.2014
     
  4. DavidGP

    DavidGP MajorGeeks Forum Administrator - Grand Pooh-Bah Staff Member

    Hey DQ

    You are very welcome and I'm glad it was not going to be a really technical fix.



    As for your other issue, I have noticed this a lot and in the main its either Windows Explorer or a 3rd party application and likely anti-virus or cleaning tool that's locked the drive or more so its still listed in the OS as using the drive, in the main you can just remove the device as I never eject a USB drive as surprise removal is ok so long as the device is not writing data.

    What you could try is not the system tray removal icon but open Windows Explorer up and in the left hand list of drives and folders right click and Eject the drive from there.
     

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