WinXP Pro - drives don't show up under Explorer?

[housepig]

okay, here's one that's been driving me batshit for about a week.

system is an Athlon 1800xp, 2 IDE channels. on channel 1, I have an 80Gb drive (partitioned as 2x40Gb) and a 160Gb (as 2x80). channel 2 has a 120Gb drive, and my DVDR. I have an IDE controller with a DVD Rom on it.

the problem? WinXP's disk management utility sees the 160gb drive, but Explorer does not.

any ideas on why this is going down, and more important, how to fix it?

[BJ_M]

1. is it a dynamic drive and have you activated it (import or re-activate)?

2. does it have a drive letter in disk manager ?

if it does , use the dos window and see if you can change to that drive letter ..

3. does it show as being formated in disk manager ..

[bazooka]

The cables might also be loose or broken.

[housepig]

1. is it a dynamic drive and have you activated it (import or re-activate)?
2. does it have a drive letter in disk manager ?
if it does , use the dos window and see if you can change to that drive letter .
3. does it show as being formated in disk manager ..

1. not sure, I'll have to check.

2. yes, it has a drive letter for both partitions - I'll have to check under DOS, but I can open, explore & access data (read and write) via Disk Management.

3. yes it does - it did when I first installed it (it had been formatted with the Maxtor disk utilities), and when I thought that might be the problem, I moved all the data, deleted the partitions and reformatted them with Disk Management.

it is working, the computer sees and can access - but not under Explorer, and not as a "Save As" option - my drop-down list shows the other drives (C, D & G) but not the new drive (H & I ).

any other info would help - I'm at a loss.

[BJ_M]

sometimes the maxtor (or other) disk utilities have an overlay for large hard drives -- im not to clear on that as i never had an issue with this - but i know some of those overlay apps can be a problem..


if it was me -- i would turn off the the system- unplug the power -- hit the power switch a few times ... unplug the drive from ide ...

replug in the pc , boot up .. and turn back off ..

replug in the drive and boot up again (and a new cable or different ide port is not a bad idea) ..

check also the jumper settings on the drive and switch it from CS to master or slave (or what ever it is) -- you may want to try it alone on what ever ide buss it is on ..

[Dr. DOS]

sometimes the maxtor (or other) disk utilities have an overlay for large hard drives -- im not to clear on that as i never had an issue with this - but i know some of those overlay apps can be a problem..


if it was me -- i would turn off the the system- unplug the power -- hit the power switch a few times ... unplug the drive from ide ...

replug in the pc , boot up .. and turn back off ..

replug in the drive and boot up again (and a new cable or different ide port is not a bad idea) ..

check also the jumper settings on the drive and switch it from CS to master or slave (or what ever it is) -- you may want to try it alone on what ever ide buss it is on ..

With DVD Drives / Hard drive combos make sure you are NOT using Cable Select for drive settings. Make sure you have Master / Slave designated for both.