Disappearing drives

[unfaithfulsfan]

Hi, all. Hope you're all doing well. I've been having more and more problems with my kidneys. Sometimes I'm laid up for two weeks at a time. Even raising the head of my hospital bed to a sitting position makes me feel like I just pulled 7 Gs on Satan's Tilt-a-Whirl. Hope you guys know, though, that you're always in my thoughts.

Before I delve into my latest conundrum I wanted to mention something I learned about last week. Have y'all heard of Digital Lifeboat? It's a new online backup solution that is still in Beta. The reason I mention it is because if you sign up as a Beta Tester, your account is free for life. That includes unlimited storage for multiple computers. The app is fairly small and runs virtually unnoticed in the background. You can select which files are included. It backed up all my data files, automatically skipping system files, on all 3 of my HDDs. It took two days to complete an ~800 GB backup. I'm going to be checking out the "Restore" function when I finish this post so I'll have to let you know how that works. It's not without its flaws, hence, the Beta status. You cannot select individual files to restore, yet. Tech Support says they're working on it. Check it out if you haven't already. http://www.digitallifeboat.com

OK, now to my insanity. Several months back I installed Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I was kind of foggy when I did it so I didn't notice that it was possible to format your drive so I went the "easy" route and let it plop a giant turd that was my Vista installation on my hard drive before it installed the new OS. Everything was OK for a while but we started having problems with Java, particularly on POGO.com's games. The same games would run fine on my laptop so I was able to rule out the site. Passwords, logins, bookmarks and other web files would simply disappear. My locally-stored files for the Village web site also disappeared from the original directory only to show up in pieces in other directories.

I figured that perhaps a "clean" install would clear up the problem. The timing was pretty good since I had just completed the Digital Lifeboat backup so, just to be safe, I copied all my files over to one of my other HDDs and did the new install. Everything seemed to go just fine. I let it run and stepped outside to have a cigar. When I went back in, there was an error in the middle of the screen "Missing Command.exe" with options "Try Again" "Skip" and "Continue." I opted for "Try Again" and the install completed with no other incidents.

After the last reboot, I opened Windows Explorer to start copying files I didn't want to have to wait for the "Restore" from DL and right away noticed that my #3 SATA HDD and my IDE DVD Burner weren't under "Computer." I thought "No big deal, probably just need to enter BIOS real quick and they'll show up after the reboot." Wrong. Both drives appear in BIOS but still not showing up in Windows. Went into Disk Management and there they were. The only difference between my missing HDD and the other 'drives was that 'my missing drive had diagonal lines across the box. I forget what I did then. I think I right-clicked in the margin where the drive designation appears and the lines went away. I thought, "Cool." Went to Computer - Nope. Ditto on the DVD drive.

I'm stumped. I was unable to find a solution to exactly my problem. None of the solutions have worked. I can remember having encountered this problem when I was working at the shop but I'll be hanged if I can remember the solution.Ii hope it's not my motherboard (Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3R). I installed all the drivers for it but have thus far been reluctant to flash the BIOS until I'm sure which version I need.

If anyone can shed some light of "FIX" on this, I'll be extremely grateful.

Take care, everybody!
Jack

[vbironchef]

When I do a clean install I only have one drive connected. I make sure that the install all looks good and all do all updates. Only then do I add more hard drives. Did you have all hard drives connected before your install? Do all your hard drives have enough power for them? I ran into that issue when I changed power supplies. I needed to have separate power and SATA cables connected to all hard drives.

[unfaithfulsfan]

Thanks for the fast response! Everything is exactly the way it was before I reinstalled. I only cracked open the case when the drives didn't show up.

Just to be sure, I re-ran the motherboard setup CD to see if it installed anything it might have missed. Now I can see my 2nd DVD drive but still no #3 HDD. Oh and ! The diagonal lines across the drive in Disk Management shows which drive is selected.

I'm going to try swapping cables to see if by some Infinitesimal chance a cable is bad.

& S.O.B.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just glanced back at Disk Management because when you mentioned disconnecting all the drives it reminded me of a FUBAR'd Vista install and I wanted to check something. Lo and behold, I just noticed the missing drive has no letter assigned! Now if I can just get the reassign utility to work!



One step closer......

Thanks again! I'll post again when I get this problem fixed......

Jack

[Clouseau]

You probalbly have already thought of this: Srcap the whole installation and wipe the entire os drive. WD has a decent dos based utility that I use. Then only install the os with as close to its minimum ram requirements as possible, plus only one opticle drive and the one hdd for the os. It is a pain in the butt but has allowed me to ferret out the offending culprit by just adding one new item at a time; be it hardware or software.

[unfaithfulsfan]

Sorry I didn't get back sooner. Man, do I feel dumb. I must have stared at the Disk Management screen for 20 minutes without noticing no drive letter was assigned. What caused me to see it was that after I reinstalled the mobo's drivers and the second burner showed up I finally noticed it was assigned "E" which is what my missing hdd had been since I built this rig. Duh.

So that issue's resolved and the Bills managed to pull a win out of their nether regions although I think if there had been a couple more minutes, they'd be 3-2 now. It seems they've just pulled a 180. Now they're burning up the field in the first half and taking the second half off. You can't let Vick run for 20, 30 or 50 yards and nail 90% of his 20+ yard passes and hope to win. We were lucky the clock ran out. The defense can't blame anyone but themselves. Fitz only threw one interception and did well enough to hold on to the ball for pretty close to 45 minutes. Yeah, the offense slacked, too, but at least they kept the defense rested, not that it showed very much.

Ah well, it's all over with but I can't wait to see the highlight reel of Fred Jackson's ~50 yard run. I went outside for a few puffs on my stogie and missed it. Don't know who I like more: Fitz, George Wilson or Freddie. Fitz has turned the players into a real team. I only started watching the NFL in '07 but from what I have heard, he's the first one to do that since Kelly and, for the most part, it shows. Wilson's having a hell of a season. He's averaging one pick per game and he made Vick's day pretty miserable today. Jackson's just a powerhouse. He wants more money and he definitely deserves it, in my book anyway. Old Ralph better not lose the talent he's finally got after 20 years of nada. Stingy old fart. Hopefully between Nix and Gailey they can get him to loosen the purse strings.

Buffalo's finally got a very good young team. Once they start playing BOTH halves consistently like they're (now) playing the first, they've got more than enough talent to win a Super Bowl.

Hmm, I've highjacked my own thread....

Thanks again, guys for the quick response to help someone who has become an irregular member, at best.

Jack

[Major_A]

I've had that happen a couple times. Install Windows but it doesn't assign drive letters or partitions. Glad you got it working. Looks like the Bills are either over-achieving or they're better than most predicted.

[unfaithfulsfan]

Looks like the Bills are either over-achieving or they're better than most predicted.

I hope it's a little of both. Fred Jackson, Stevie Johnson and (I think) Jairus Byrd are all in, at least, the top 10 in the league in their respective categories. Locally, Jackson is the first RB to rush for 100 yards in the first three games since OJ. He came into this game with the 3rd highest yards per carry in the league at 5.7. Stevie Johnson already has 10 TDs under his belt and Byrd is up there again with I forget how many interceptions.

It was fascinating to me, anyway, for the commentators saying such positive things about the Bills: i.e. (During the last 2 minutes of the first half) "The Bills are in their 2 minute warning pattern. You know, [whoever], nobody does this drill better than the Bills this year. They set up so fast that the defense barely has time to get to the line before the snap." I looked over at a friend of mine and his jaw was hanging open, too. We were like, "They were talking about the Bills!?!?!?!?"

I've relaxed a little bit because of 2008 when we were 4-0 and in game 5 against the Cardinals Trent Edwards got his first concussion and, although we still won the game, it was the beginning of the end for that season for the Bills. Fitzpatrick doesn't seem that fragile. I've seen him take some serious hits but he always seems to bounce back. One of the local bands up here wrote a song about him called "The Amish Rifle." Similar to Amish men, Fitz doesn't shave his beard all season. He barely even trims it. Makes my chin hurt every time I think about him snapping the chin strap with basically a Kenny Rogers beard.





Pretty cool stuff. Outside of my own feelings, I'm just really happy for the city and the long-term fans. They've been waiting for this for a long, long time. I don't know how long it will last but hopefully they'll at least get a winning season out of this. Buffalo as a city is a great place to live, despite all its critics. It has a damn good hockey team as well as a world class lacrosse team. I think it'd be so cool for the Bills to get out of this 20 year slump.

Take care,
Jack

[smack323]

I'd like to see the Bills make the Superbowl against my beloved Packers...

[unfaithfulsfan]

I'd like to see the Bills make the Superbowl against my beloved Packers...

I'd just like the see the Bills MAKE it to the Super Bowl!!! Of course, since they're the only team that has never won a Super Bowl it'd be nice to see them win one after 50 years! Packers or whoever...

[smack323]

I checked out the digital lifeboat also- how did the restore go? It almost seems to good to be true. Unlimited Cloud storage free for life? I emailed support and they said two PC's would be included with the free account. I never asked but what would happen if you upgraded or replaced a PC? Perhaps thats why its "free" for life bacause they figure people will get new PC sooner or later. Sorry to hear about your health hope thing take a turn for the better soon!

[unfaithfulsfan]

Thanks for the health wish. Always glad to get those!!

My restore didn't restore, bummer that it was. I'm still not sure why but I think it goes back to the inability to select specific files to restore. My "Restore Set" includes all 3 of my drives and for some reason it gave me the message "No files required restore" or something to that effect. Fortunately I also had backed everything up to my "Music" drive so it wasn't a total loss.

I've had so many irons in the fire the last few days-this iron in particular is turning into a long install http://forums.legitreviews.com/post199776.html#p199776 - so I haven't really had time to look into it in detail. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back to it tomorrow or Thursday.

Take care!
Jack