Windows won't assign a drive letter

Discussion in 'Software' started by Rob M., Jul 2, 2008.

  1. Rob M.

    Rob M. First Sergeant

    My son's original computer quit suddenly -- either the mobo or the CPU died. No big deal -- he replaced the machine. But he wants the data on the hard drive from the old machine.

    So I installed it in his new machine for him as a second hard drive. That was the easy part.

    The new machine's BIOS sees and recognises the drive, and so does the Windows hardware management services on the new computer. The drive is visible in both the Device Manager and the Disk Management utility. But Windows will not assign a drive letter to it, so it does not come up in My Computer. What's on it is not accessible.

    The BIOS correctly identifies the drive as a 40GB Samsung SP4002H. Disk Manager shows it as a basic drive with a capacity of 37.3GB with 19.64GB free in a NTFS format. It is marked Active and Healthy. Drive Manager's Disk Rescan utility has no effect, and the option for re-assigning drive letters for this drive is greyed out. The only available options for this drive are "Reformat" and "Help".

    The new system the drive is now mounted in provides IDE connections for both SATA and PATA drives. The Samsung 40GB drive is a PATA drive, and is in the Master position on the data cable. A DVD drive is in the slave position. Both are jumpered for CS. The BIOS shows the Samsung drive as the Primary Master, the DVD drive as the Primary Slave, and the SATA boot drive as the Secondary Master. There are no other drives in the system.

    The system the Samsung drive came from was a 5 year old machine that was running XP Home -- probably SP1, but I don't know that. I'm guessing. The new machine is running Windows XP Pro SP2 off a 160GB Western Digital drive formatted with NTFS.

    What do I have to do to get Windows to assign a drive letter to the Samsung drive so we can access the data on it?

    One further datum that may or may not be relevant or even accurate: Samsung's jumpering instructions on the SP4002H are confusing in the extreme. When I pulled it out of the dead system, I thought it was jumpered for a 32GB capacity limit. But I'm not sure -- I may have misread the jumper chart on the drive. And the jumpers have now been moved several times trying to resolve this issue and the original setting is gone. Both the BIOS and Windows Disk Management in the new machine report the drive's full capacity. The drive is not now jumpered for a capacity limit.
     
  2. Rob M.

    Rob M. First Sergeant

    Some additional info that might help somebody think of a solution...

    I installed the Samsung drive in an external USB enclosure and hooked it up to two different computers as a USB drive. Same results with each of them: the Windows Drive Management utility correctly identified the drive, but without a drive letter. Same obstacles to resolution, too: "change drive letter" option greyed out, and all that.
     
  3. Harleyman52

    Harleyman52 Private E-2

    This happens at times..The old puter tagged the drive and won't allow you to give it a path.....

    I have seen this before,and the only work around I came up with was to put it back into the old puter,copy all files off,and format it,then place it back into new rig and it should be able to work....


    Not the best answer...Sorry...
     
  4. Harleyman52

    Harleyman52 Private E-2

    I just realized your old puter was dead...Ouch..that makes matters worst....

    Ummm...Its gotta be in the BIOS...but where.....

    Can you change it to the first drive in BIOS and see what it does? Maybe????
     
  5. Rob M.

    Rob M. First Sergeant

    You mean master drive on the primary IDE channel; i.e., boot drive?

    Yup. Tried that. In two machines. Norton GoBack kicked in, but I never got the OS loaded. Only one restore point before the machine died was available, and that didn't work. Earlier restore points were listed but were no longer available.

    In the second machine I tried, the Samsung drive was then the only hard drive in the machine, so the machine must have been able to access the drive to make NGB run. Maybe that's a good sign. But I know just about nothing about NGB -- I avoid Norton products like the plague they are.

    (And for what it's worth: in its original location, the Samsung drive was the boot drive, i.e., master on the primary IDE channel. It was mounted internally.)
     
  6. Rob M.

    Rob M. First Sergeant

    In another forum I tried, somebody suggested I re-write the partition table using TestDrive -- but the thread also warned that I should post for additional info if there was a hidden recovery partition on the drive.

    Does Norton GoBack set up such a thing? WinXP's Disk Management utility didn't show it, but another utility I ran did show an 11MB partition at the end of the drive space, so maybe that's what it is?

    Anyone out there care to comment on TestDrive? Or on the 11MB hidden partition on the drive?
     
  7. Anagarika

    Anagarika Private E-2

    Rob M,

    I have same issue, but on Vista. If you check my other post, I got no reply.

    The drive was recognized and assigned proper letter on XP (Another computer) but not on the Vista. Earlier (when it was new), Vista recognized it no issue. Somewhere along the road, suddenly it's gone. I had another USB device (a flash drive), also just recently found not being read too. All devices are fine on another 2 computers.

    The volume, again was there (under Disk Management), but everytime I try to assign drive letter, it's not there.

    I am thinking of overhauling the Vista, but haven't got time to do so (need to do backup first .. )
     
  8. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    i'd try a knoppix disk, and see if you can get at your data. i'm running late for work, but try doing a search on this here on this site, i've actually got a few posts on this. also, dlb has posted alot of "recovery software" links in various threads. g/l, sos

    http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=162112 <-- Hard Drive Disappeared

    edit - this is how i got my data (similar problem to yours). i got what i could off, and wiped the drive clean, and it seems fine now (most of the data was from 2004 and prior - misc pics, music, etc). - sos
     
  9. Rob M.

    Rob M. First Sergeant

    Knoppix

    Thanks, sosaman. I've learned several new things. I'd heard the name Knoppix before, but didn't pay it much attention. It was worth the 4.2GB download. The amount of stuff on that disk is quite amazing.

    And yes, it let me access the drive. I haven't quite figured out where to go from here, or how to make the drive accessible in WinXP without trashing the data -- but I'm working on it. Suggestions are more than welcome.

    For those who are interested in more info about Knoppix, here are some links:

    What's included in the Knoppix Live CD? Click here. This site will also give you minimum system requirements (far lower than Windows) and a download link.
    System recovery with Knoppix -- click here.
    Installing Knoppix on a flash drive - click here.
     
  10. sosaman

    sosaman Sergeant Major

    Re: Knoppix

    lol, i've only used the "cd version", i haven't tried the "dvd version" yet. you should be able to follow my tutorial to save your data to another h/d, or thumbdrive, etc. if you finally get all the data that you can get, then i'd wipe the drive clean, and reload your os. if you need more help, then just shoot!! ;) - g/l, sos


    edit - once i get around to it, i'm gonna clean up the instructions, and post more screenshots as well. - sos
     
  11. Rob M.

    Rob M. First Sergeant

    Re: Knoppix

    Thanks, sosaman.

    Knoppix let me burn the majority of the files we needed to a CD-ROM, and also let me copy a few files I missed to a floppy. So we got the data we needed off the drive.

    But it would still be nice to find a way to make Windows give the drive a letter so that it would be accessible. Suggestions, anyone?

    Should I blame Norton GoBack and its hidden partition for the inability to do so?
     

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