Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!

Subject: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: wilbyhillbilly
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 07:21 AM

I put a disc in the laptop as normal waited for it to start, but nothing showed on screen, so, went to "my computer" to select the D drive and it wasn't there!.

The actual disc player (internal) was working normally, spinning etc, but nothing happened on the screen.

Called some local "expert" (we've recently moved here so lost all my regular contacts) who came and looked, said it needed a new disc player, he took it away, then brought it back 4 days later and said the player was fine but he couldn't find the problem, but it was something to do with the "system not finding the player".

I'm running WinXP Pro and it's a Toshiba laptop which has been brilliant up to now. As far as I know I haven't done anything within "the system" other than use it as normal.

Can anyone PLEEEEEEEEEEASE tell me if it is possible to reinstate the 'D' drive , so I can find the player again as it is very difficult to load stuff without being able to use the discs.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: bobad
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 07:48 AM

Some possible fixes can be found here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/171067-32-drive-drive-detected

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: Acorn4
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 07:48 AM

Have you tried going back to a "system restore" point?

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 07:48 AM

The ATAPI cable sometimes gets slightly loose; press all its plugs in very firmly (while the computer is switched off). If this doesn't fix it, you may try to boot a live Linux to see whether it is your OS's fault. FWIW - I am not an expert either.

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: Bernard
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 07:53 AM

More often than not, uninstalling the driver, rebooting and letting it find it again will work.

I always keep a USB DVD drive handy for such eventualities - a quick 'get out of jail free' card!!

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: wilbyhillbilly
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 08:22 AM

Thanks folks, I'll go to the link from bobad and see, but most of the other stuff is above my level of understanding, sorry.

It has to be idiot proof to work for me:-)

Never had these problems with my old Remington typewriter.

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: GUEST,Geek
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 08:46 AM

Try CD Gone, a registry restorer.

http://www.geekstogo.com/forum/files/file/8-cdgone/

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: wilbyhillbilly
Date: 25 Jan 11 - 10:32 AM

DONE!!!!! Wonderful, thanks bobad, it was that link that had the answer. Fantastic.

Mudcat excelled again.

Thank you everybody from a very happy bunny.


whb

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 26 Jan 11 - 06:43 AM

I currently have the opposite problem: a Hard Drive that refuses to go away.

I hooked up a portable 1T external drive a few days ago and copied about 300GB to it with the intention of reorganizing some backups.

Unfortunately, I neglected to UNCHECK the default "index this drive for faster searching" in the drive properties.

The first time I tried to disconnect it said it was busy. I assumed that it was just building the folder structure, due to the fairly large amount of stuff I'd dumped on it. That's sort of a necessary function so I let it run.

By the second day, it became clear that something else was going on and it occured to me that I should check properties.

Sure enough, it's busy "indexing" the drive ---- NOW NINE DAYS LATER ---- with no sign of finishing.

Having been through this before, I know that if I turn off indexing it will have to delete all the index files, which will keep it busy for at least another week before it will voluntarily allow me to turn it off.

The worst of it is that it doesn't make any real difference whether it's indexed or not, since Vista "Search" is useless on any drive with more than about 100KB on it to begin with, unless (maybe) you create "tags" for it to search for, for each file. I've got over 2,000,000 files in archive that I'd rather not have to do that for.

But I only put 745,000 of them on this new drive so far, so ...

Maybe by tomorrow?

Or by next Thursday?

Or in a week or two?

At least indexing is a "background" operation that doesn't tie up the computer - just the drive it's working on.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: scouse
Date: 26 Jan 11 - 08:01 AM

John your so nonchalant about such things... I'd be pullin' me hair out by now!!
As Aye,
Phil

Subject: RE: Tech: Help please ,'D' drive disappeared!
From: GUEST
Date: 26 Jan 11 - 08:31 AM

cd gone is great

1. check connectons
2. reboot twice (there are issues that require two reboots)
3. use cd gone
4. Store cd gone on your computer for later use

-just in case run disk cleanup and diagnostics
-to be safe run anti virus software as this can be a virus manefestation too.

Of course the easiest- take out the disk replace it with something like a sound cd which you know is not corrupted. At times a disk with too much information on it for the computer to process will cause this until the information is eventually read.

Conrad