Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with windows and drive

Help me fix a hard drive that fails at 86%

patrad — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:54:46 -0800

How can I recover anything off this hard drive that fails low level scans at 86%? I'm fixing a friend's computer. He has a SATA 160gb Maxtor drive. First, the XP registry went and would BSOD on boot and recovery. After chkdsk failed a couple times and I could not fix or restore the registry, I installed Win7 on a new SATA drive. Once installed, it started to recognize the other drive and I managed to copy a couple folders over.

Then Win7 stopped recognizing the drive. Rebooted, and the BIOS sees the drive but Win7 does not. I can boot into PE and run drive diagnostics.

SeaTools just stops at 86%.
MHDD scans fine until 86.3% at which point it shows about 49 UNC (Uncorrectable Errors) and 27 AMNF (address mark not found)

Clearly something is failing at that point on the platter. At this point I'm stuck. What tool is best to be able to copy the 86% of the drive over to the new one and start file recovery if possible?

What's a good, preferably free, diagnostics program for Windows?

Grinder — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:38:35 -0800

What's a good, preferably free, diagnostics program for Windows? I've been asked to look at a Windows laptop which had a hard disk crash recently. I want to do a low-level disk scan and general test of the electronics, like what Norton Disk Doctor et al for DOS used to do, but don't use Windows much any more and don't know what would be good. Does any one have any suggestions? (Free options preferred.)

How do I stop windows from taking over my portable hard drive

Syntoad — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 05:40:02 -0800

I have a portable usb hard drive that I use for keeping all my documents / backups on. Windows seems to love using this drive for everything, for example I am installing IE7 from windows update, and it is using the drive to hold all the temporary files during the install. Because of this the drive is always in use and I can never eject it. Using unlocker I can see that no less than three services are holding files open on this drive, and system restore is also using it (even though I disabled it for the external drive)

How can I get windows to treat this external the same way it treats a USB stick, instead of it treating it like an actual hard drive?

Why does external drive keep switching back to read-only setting?

noir — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:20:27 -0800

I have an external usb drive running off my Windows 7 computer. It keeps switching back to Read-Only, so when I try to send files to it, it merely appends a file and adds a number to its name, instead of re-writing the entire file. I've tried to change it back, but it does not stay changed. The minute I refresh the page, the read-only status comes back! Is there some setting I'm missing? Is there something in Windows 7 that's causing this to happen?

Which USB Mass Storage Device is which?

msbrauer — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:19:26 -0800

How can I change the generic name "USB Mass Storage Device" in my Vista system tray "Safely Remove Hardware" dialog? It's not uncommon for me to have a couple of external harddrives plugged in to my Vista laptop alongside a memory card and an mp3 player. While all of these devices have unique drive letters and unique names in windows explorer (one of the drives is always called 400gig, for instance, another is always called 500gig), they're all called "USB Mass Storage Device" in the system tray's "Safely Remove Hardware" menu. So when I need to unplug one but not all, I find myself taking a stab at which device is which and usually I pick the wrong one. I can solve the confusion easily enough by opening the "my computer" window and figuring out the drive letter from there, but that's an extra step that I'd love to get rid of. Ideally, the dialog would always say something like "Safely remove 400gig - Drive (x:)" and stay the same for each device each time it's plugged in.

So, is it possible to change the menu options from "Safely remove USB Mass Storage Device - Drive (x:)" to something unique for each device?

Windows n00b needs help explaining how computer is formed.

Devils Rancher — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:49:53 -0800

Windows Illiteracy Filter. Help me help my mother via long-distance to understand the difference between memory and hard disk storage, and how to access information on her Windows XP machine that will tell her how much memory she has, if there are any empty slots, what type of memory her computer requires, and how large her hard drive is, including used/available space stats. I'm a long-time Mac user that could probably find all this given long enough in front of said computer, but she lives 1800 miles away, and I don't know where to tell her to click.

I could also use guidance in how to explain these complexities in pedestrian language, so as to not lose my temper with a person who has a tendency to interrupt, in conversation. I will be handling this via email, so as to be able to complete a sentence. I got utterly frustrated with her on the phone the other day trying to explain the difference, as I wanted to send her some files, but she said she didn't have enough memory to store them. I tried to explain the difference between memory and storage, but got interrupted to the point where I gave up. Today I get an email from her telling me her computer "has 3 mb of memory."

Hope me.

Running short on cache?

Aanidaani — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:46:27 -0800

Hard drive issues: Frequently when I attempt to open a folder on my Windows Vista partition I will have to wait 5 seconds or so for the drive to spin up (I hear it). Is there some way I can fix my cache or otherwise set up the drive so that it doesn't need to spin up every time I access files on my root drive? I recently installed a new SATA drive to replace my failing IDE drive. I've divided it up into two partitions, one to store documents and another to hold my Windows Vista installation. Accessing files on both partitions is fine, it's just that there is a long delay (~5 seconds) whenever I try to access the Vista partition in Windows Explorer or through a save/open dialog.

I'm wondering if there is some way to increase the cache size so my hard drive doesn't need to spin up constantly or if there is a completely different issue at fault here that I don't understand. Any help would be appreciated.

Can I use the B: drive on my PC?

penciltopper — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 18:32:41 -0800

Can I use B: as a drive letter, on a modern windows PC, without messing things up? Doing some reading, I have learned that there's no B: drive on most PCs because B: used to be the letter for the 2nd floppy disk; most don't have it anymore, so the B: has become archaic.

But I don't see any reason not to use a perfectly good letter.

Is there any reason that I can't assign an external drive to B: (for Backups, duh)?

Would it cause some kind of system irregularity?

How about a networked share? If I've networked all the computers in the house/office/domain, and can I map their backups to B: without causing any wonkiness?

Does this differ from XP to Vista?

B: might actually be special to the system in some way that would make it incompatible, and if so, Fine, I'll leave it alone.

But if it's not any different than F: or Q:, then I'd like to know I'm free to use it without any extra worries.

External hard drive problem with XP

droplet — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:47:04 -0800

Can I get my WD external hard drive back to the way it was? Last year, I bought a WD5000C032 My Book Essential 500GB external hard drive. It's plug and play, so I plugged it in, formatted it, Windows assigned it as drive I and all was good. I got XP Service Pack 3 a few weeks ago and all seemed well. Also, XP is set up to automatically update, I use CCleaner about 2x a week, and I've got AVG 7.5 as my virus detector.

Last Friday, while on my computer, I got the data write error message. I'd never seen that before. There was only one folder in it when I checked the drive. I shut down, unplugged everything and rebooted. Then I replugged. Nothing. In the device manager, it's detected as a device, but disk management doesn't detect it as a drive. GetDataBack listed the device as a 2TB drive, which it isn't. Upon starting the data retrieval procedure, it gave me an "I/O error 23," showed 10 bad sectors and then stopped responding.

I've looked up on the the Windows XP support site and on various tech forums for a solution, but none seem to work. I also downloaded the WD drive manager from the support page, ran it and nada. The drive manager doesn't even see the drive.

Am I screwed? I will have a straight-up fit if I lose the media on this drive.

This is not my beautiful OS.

tmcw — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 06:59:40 -0800

My fantastically unstable IBM T42 (which is on it's 3rd, soon to be 4th, life) died a little while ago, no longer booting into Ubuntu. However, it loves to boot into Windows. How do I nuke both? I'd like to run Ubuntu on this computer for another few months until it takes all of my vital data with it again. I've tried running LiveCDs to fsck the primary drive (ubuntuforums didn't care, apparently), but all of these failed. I can boot into Windows and it works fine - and I can even run some ext3 drivers/wrappers and access my linux partition from there (I have, so all of my data is now backed up). However, what I can't do is boot into any OS other than Windows. I'd like to basically wipe drive and boot partition so that I can put a new install of an OS on it - and I'm considering DBAN, although wondering if that's A) recoverable, in that the drive will still be usable B) going to fail like LiveCDs did.

Plan 2: I can get this laptop fixed under a very good warranty. Good enough that I've already gone through two hard drives and an LCD on it. However, they believe that a Windows installation is enough for any student. Not this student. So if I can just botch it up tremendously, I can get a clean slate by that method.

Thanks for any help. I'm getting a mac, and backing up my data, but to have a formerly high-end ThinkPad running XP is just a loss of potential.

FAT3000?

tmcw — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 09:33:58 -0800

I think I'm finally switching to Ubuntu on my main machine. I have two 160GB external drives, currently both with NTFS, currently mirrored (by software, not a RAID). With what and how should I format/use these guys? Currently both drives have about 60 gigs used. I have 80 or so gigs on my laptop. I'd like them to be accessible by Windows in a clutch, and eventually (about a year) I'm getting a mac laptop, so I'll need to switch to that too. But my primary goal is to get a good Linux / Windows formatting scheme for the meantime. They're filled with music and school documents - no applications at this point. I'm aiming to use VirtualBox or similar (any suggestions?) to run Windows, so that might decide their accessibility?

Thanks!

Help creating an autorun file for external drive

royalchinook — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:44:36 -0800

I have a big external USB hard drive with three partitions for infrequently used files and backup. I was wondering what kind of file to make to have it automatically open a folder showing the drive when I power on the device and not ask me what I'd like to do with each of the other drives. Currently, when I power on, it starts searching through all my files for an autorun file (which isn't there) - I have to cancel it or it would run for awhile to find nothing; this searching is what I'd like to have not happen

I took a look at some autorun.inf files that I put on the external drives partitions (let's say that they're R, S and T) but that didn't stop the search from happening, or get a explorer view of the folders inside...

Any help on this? Or resources that you could point me to?

How to stop XP automatic search when drive is plugged in?

univac — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 11:31:48 -0800

How do I stop windows from automatically searching for media when a new drive is plugged in? (Minor annoyance.) When I plug in an external USB drive, windows automatically begins cataloguing the media, and an annoying little window pops up.

It gives me the option of cancelling the search, but I ususally can't click it in time.

There must be a way to turn this off altogether!

How to boot PC XP and Intel OSX from external drive?

h2 — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 16:55:45 -0800

How do I configure a 2.5" 60 gig usb external drive to boot Windows XP on a PC as well as be able to boot Mac OS X 10.4 on an Intel MacBook?

VAIO shutdown - startup issues

trinarian — Mon, 31 Jul 2006 01:47:51 -0800

Sony VAIO SZ shutdown - startup issues. My friend has a nearly new Sony VAIO SZ13C bought in Shenzhen, China. He recently aquired a portable hard drive for it. Since then his computer locks up on shutdown unless the portable USB HDD is plugged in. There is also a start-up issue where every few boots the internal HDD light doesn't flicker on bootup and the scrolling blue pegs move very slowly on the startup screen.

It will shutdown correctly in safemode.

The only hardware issue we can see in device manager is an IEEE 1394 controller is disabled on startup.

It also restarts OK with that controller turned back on, Rising Anti-Virus auto-protect turned off.

Mandatory: HELP! line.

How to dual boot XP from a drive from another computer.

DZ-015 — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 06:39:20 -0800

Can I dual boot from an XP drive that came from older (dead) computer? My friend's girlfriend's computer died last week. The machine won't boot up and it looks like the mainboard is fried. My friend would like to swop the working hard drive from the dead computer into his Dell and create a dual boot scenario where he can load either operating system e.g. "Load My Windows XP Pro" or "Load Girlfriend's Windows XP Pro". I know you can connect the old drive as a slave and see it in Windows explorer, but is the dual boot scenario possible?

Restricted Files on Windows

benjh — Sun, 18 Jun 2006 07:10:04 -0800

How can I access restricted files on a Windows partition? I recently set up a friend's computer. I took the hard drive from his old Windows XP machine and put it in his new machine, and set it up as a secondary drive, so he could access all of his files.

But... the files in his home directory, Windows tells me access is restricted to those, because he isn't the user that is assigned to that home directory, because he is on a different machine.

Is there any way to access those files from the machine that the hard drive is currently in?

Windows XP crashes during file access, can I fix it?

monsta coty scott — Sat, 18 Feb 2006 14:04:48 -0800

Windows XP crashes whenever it accesses a specific file. The problem: I don't know what file it is. What would cause such a serious error and how do I fix it? I know it's a file located under D:\mp3s\ . I first had the problem when backing up the directory to an external hard drive, in the middle of the copying it crashes the computer. I get a short glimpse of a blue screen of death and then intant reboot. I attempted again and it crashed about the same time into the copying.

I ran scandisk on the drive to hopefully fix the corrupt file, but it crashes when accessing that part as well. I ran a virus scan, once again the computer crashes anytime any program tries to access that file.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to track down what file it is and how to remove it? (Short of accessing files one at a time to find the culprit.)

Changing Drive Assmt for USB CF Reader?

vanoakenfold — Sat, 28 Jan 2006 04:03:11 -0800

Changing drive letters in Windows 2000 I just installed a USB CompactFlash reader, and it has been installed (without my say-so) as drive D. I already had a drive D (80gb usb external HD) and everything that was shortcutted to Drive D now no longer functions properly. Is there a simple way I can change the drive letter of the CF Reader to F or G, manually?

Making Firewire devices work with WinXP

weston — Mon, 12 Dec 2005 19:42:00 -0800

Firewire and Windows XP: I bought an external Firewire Drive on Ebay. When I plug it into a PC, it's not recognized, and the driver search does not go well. Similarly, if I start up my Powerbook G4 as a Firewire device, and hook it to my PC, Windows is again puzzled. What can I do to help Win XP succesfully work with these devices? Or should I send back the drive and pick my Firewire devices more carefully? Here's the auction I bought the drive from. It's utterly generic, displaying absolutely no branding on both packaging and the device itself. It does work just fine when I plug it into my Powerbook. But when I plug it into the PC, it merely recognizes that it's new hardware and we start the driver search dance. It fails at locating things automatically, so I tried the CD that came with it (also branding-free) that contains:

• a folder called "mac"
• 2507RM.exe (apparently an uninstaller for a Win 98 USB-to-IDE Driver)
• 2507RM_silent.exe (which, true to its name, gives no sign of doing anything)
• PL2507S.inf
• PL2507U.INF
• Setup.exe (which starts an installshield process that quits, informing you it only works under Windows 98)

None of these files appear to be helpful. Windows does tell me that it's a "Prolific 3507 Combo Device (1394 ATAPI_Rev 1.00)" when I plug it in, and so I went to Prolific's site in hopes of finding the latest and greatest. Unfortunately, this seems to be all that's available. Notice it's all Win98 and ME stuff, which isn't helpful. I've also contacted the support email address listed in the auction last Friday morning, but have thus far gotten no response.

As for the Powerbook, it's a G4 667 DVI. I poked around to see if there were specific drivers for using Macs as Firewire devices, but can't seem to find anything. This isn't too important -- I mostly tried connecting it because it's the only other Firewire device I have handy to test with. But I'd like to know if this is theoretically possible.

The PC is a Sony VIAO Desktop running WinXP Pro SP 2. The Firewire Bus host controller says it's a "NEC OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller."

I'd really like to be able to (a) fix the problem and have all these devices get along, but failing that, I'd be happy to hear (b) advice on how to deal with the seller and eBay, because this may be my first returned item ever and (c) recommendations for External Firewire enclosures/drives that play well with both PCs and Macs.

What the heck is grinding my hard drive?

crazyray — Wed, 23 Nov 2005 23:33:07 -0800

Is there any Windows XP utility that will tell me what program is accessing my hard drive? My Dell Latitude D600 as recently started grinding the hard drive **constantly** for periods of 10-30 minutes, for no apparent reason whatsoever. I have plenty of RAM- 512 MB- which is rarely more than half used- so not a result of virtual memory. I have recently upgraded Firefox to 1.5, and I also recently updated Windows Defender (aka Microsoft Anti-spyware) to Beta 2. I tried disabling Windows Defender, but… gee, thanks to Sony’s recent DRM shenanigans, Microsoft won’t let you totally disable it any more because of fear of root kits.
I have run spyware scans, trendmicro housecall, NAV, HijackThis!, you name it… nothing is showing up as resource intensive. Furthermore, when I cntl-alt-delete, process manager doesn’t show any unusual CPU activity during the HD access (which is really, really heavy for 20+ minutes at a time)
I am asking- is there any way to tell which app is accessing the HD? What I am envisioning is something that shows a list of apps, and what the bandwidth is to and from the hard drive

This is a Dell Latitude, D600, 1.59 Gig/ 512 MB of RAM, Windows XP SP2, 4 gigabytes free on HD.
Also (this may not be related whatsoever) the Windows Key (between CNTL and ALT on the keyboard) has recently stopped functioning. Control-escape still works though

From Mac to Windows

TheFeatheredMullet — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 08:40:38 -0800

Help me transition to Mac. I have a home computer (Windows) that just crapped out. There was a power surge or something and the Power supply and motherboard are now toast. The hard drive is OK. I have an iBook, and now I want to get a Mac Mini for home. My question is.... How do I get the files off my old (standard ATAPI) hard drive and into my iBook? Is there some sort of adapter that I can buy to plug into my USB port? What options are available?

Combining and changing partitions

punishinglemur — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:40:08 -0800

I just received a new Acer laptop. The hard drive is 100GB, but it arrived divided into two partitions. According to the Windows XP Professional disk management window, the drive is divided as follows ... PQSERVICE: 2.25GB FAT32
ACER (C:): 45.26GB FAT32 [System]
ACERDATA (D:): 45.65GB FAT32

I want to combine the ACER and ACERDATA partitions, and then convert to NTFS. The ACERDATA partition appears to contain nothing more than a handful of system restore point folders. How can I do this?

RAM Disk

KRS — Wed, 25 May 2005 12:13:11 -0800

Back in the dear dead days of DOS, I used to speed up things by creating a virtual disk in memory so that searches and other disk-I/O-intensive operations would run faster. In later version of DOS, there was a RAMDrive command. Is there an equivalent utility in Win XP (Home or Pro) to park Temp files and similar items in a lettered drive in RAM? Or does Windows take care of that automatically?

Windows 2000 hard disk management

patrickje — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 11:39:55 -0800

Hard disk management. I have several hard drives, running from 20GB to 120GB. My primary C: drive is on the 20GB drive, and the other day I noticed it was taking quite a while to do things, the C: drive was down to about 20MB of disk space! What I'm looking for is a disk manager that would look at hard drive and tell me what folders are taking up what space on the hard drive, so I could prune the offending directories. I'm on Windows 2000, and would prefer freeware.