Hidden Drive Letter Problem

JoeY is a NooB · Mar 3, 2006

Web Site said:

One of my disk volume drive letters isn't accessible any more or isn't visible in Windows Explorer

Explanation: A drive volume letter appears to be "missing" from the system. For example, there may be a C:, D: and E: drive but only C: and D: show up in Windows Explorer.

Diagnosis: Assuming that there isn't a fault with the hard disk itself, the problem here is likely that the drive letter has been hidden by the operating system for one reason or another.

Recommendation:

* Make sure that the drive letter really does exist, and there isn't a physical disk problem. If none of the drive letters of a physical disk are showing up, the problem is likely with the disk, so troubleshoot it.
* See if the drive letter shows up when you boot to plain DOS. If it does, then this is likely a hidden drive letter problem.
* If you try to set up a disk with two primary partitions, using something like Partition Magic (since this cannot be done with normal partitioning software like FDISK) then one of the partitions will be hidden when you boot up.
* If you've installed the "TweakUI" applet (part of Microsoft's "PowerToys" add-on for Windows 95) then you should open it and look under the "My Computer" tab. You will find a checkbox for every drive letter, which lets you hide that drive from the "My Computer" display and the Windows Explorer. Make sure nothing is being hidden here.
* If you are using disk compression, and you decided to compress all or most of the host drive, then the operating system may hide the host drive letter (since it would be full from containing the compressed volume, and therefore not useful). Compression software can also play tricks such as remapping or changing drive letters. You can unhide a hidden compressed volume host disk by running the compression software utility, which is normally called DriveSpace if you are using Microsoft's compression facilities.
Click to expand...

How do I fix it?
I attempted to set my E drive as the active partition (it is on the same physical hard disk as the D drive) and it gave me some error, and now by D drive is either gone or hidden (i hope.) Please help as EVERYTHING is on my D drive.

Clark_Kent · Mar 3, 2006

DO you have XP is so go to control panel / Administrative tools / computer management / and disk management from there you should be able to fix your
problem....

Hope this help...

JoeY is a NooB · Mar 3, 2006

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/6093/mghelp2ev.jpg
What do I do here? Btw I know its hidden, because when I booted PartitionMagic off of the floppys it made, it said D (Hidden) or something like it, but I couldnt use my mouse so I couldnt do anything.

JoeY is a NooB · Mar 3, 2006

I think that my problem has something to do with the fact that my drive has no letter assigned to it. It used to be D. I have Partiton Magic, how can I fix this?

rsdean2002 · Mar 14, 2006

I'm also having a problem with my slave drive not being displayed in Windows explorer. I just did a clean install of Windows XP Professional on the Main Hard Drive and did nothing to the slave; however, I cannot see the slave in the explorer. I used the computer management utility and I can see the drive is there but has not name nor dirve letter assigned and when I right click on it the only option is to delete the partition and the other options are grayed out.

Help.. How do I get the slave visible; it has over 50 Gb of important data that I cannot afford to loose?

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Hidden Drive Letter Problem

JoeY is a NooB Private E-2

Clark_Kent MajorGeek

JoeY is a NooB Private E-2

JoeY is a NooB Private E-2

rsdean2002 Private E-2