Hard Drive not shown in Disk Management

R

riscbroker

Expert Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2006
Messages
2,458
Reaction score
341
This thread is allied to the trouble that I have with the same machine not seeing USB devices properly.

This is a Toshiba Satellite, XP Home, SP2. The machine works normally BUT when you go to Disk Management, the hard drive is not displayed, nor is a USB drive if inserted. The only drive displayed is the CDROM drive. I cannot defrag the HDD, just get an error message.

If I check My Computer, the C: drive is present, but no USB devices are displayed there........

Is this likely a virus or Windows trouble?
 
Try create another user account with admin rights and see if that works.

As for the USB drive, try it in another system. If it don't work there then either the drive itself is gone or its usb circuits popped.
Or maybe your laptops usb's popped.

what's the error message on defrag ? HDD too full maybe?
 
Last edited:
Drake2007 said:
Try create another user account with admin rights and see if that works.

As for the USB drive, try it in another system. If it don't work there then either the drive itself is gone or its usb circuits popped.
Or maybe your laptops usb's popped.

what's the error message on defrag ? HDD too full maybe?
Click to expand...

Tried a new user account, no difference.
USB drive works fine in the other 3 PC's that I have here.
Error message is "Disk Defragmenter could not start"
 
You can try this as well:

- Disable 3rd Party Firewall Software and Antivirus, disconnect network drives if any and check again.
- Make certain the Logical Disk Manager and Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service's is running. If not start them and check for error messages.
- Try to change the CDROM drive Letter to something else and restart--could be a conflict.
 
Eish ok, and your updated AV software reports nothing?

**I'd assume you've gone throug that all**
what AV are you using?
 
Last edited:
vatso said:
You can try this as well:

- Disable 3rd Party Firewall Software and Antivirus, disconnect network drives if any and check again.
- Make certain the Logical Disk Manager and Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service's is running. If not start them and check for error messages.
- Try to change the CDROM drive Letter to something else and restart--could be a conflict.
Click to expand...

No AV currently installed, I just ditched Norton.
How do I check if Logical Disk Manager Admin Service is running?
Changed CDR drive letter, makes no diffs

Thanks for the interest guys, I've got very little hair left.......
 
Logical disk service is in
Control panel > administration tools > services

Another thing to go through while you're in there is to check Event Viewer for some more clues what's going on with the machine.
 
Last edited:
Yeah I'd say reinstall XP, since you can't see USB, backup your data to your other PC on your network if you can.
 
If you have any knowledge of Linux I'd go that route first to test the hardware out.
 
I had the same problem, I tried everything!

Basically, I ended up (after trying everything) was to format and reinstall.

I think in my case, one of the Acronis programs buggered it up but it could've been something else, if you google this, it's very rare, some sites say it's spyware, some say you must reinstall your 'correct' IDE drivers, some say, uninstall the ones MS puts on and well, just format and reinstall.

A reinstall didn't work for me, I had to format which leads me to think (more so) that it was one of the 'many' IDE type software I had on my PC. (Had being the operative word, I took them all off and then the problem appeared)
 
gdiza said:
I had the same problem, I tried everything!

Basically, I ended up (after trying everything) was to format and reinstall.
Click to expand...

I've come to the same conclusion. I've googled this till I'm blue in the face, tried everything.
Time for format.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X