After a successful Windows 7 setup my PC doesn't "recognise" two external drives...

[lostinisaan]

Hello,

The PC is a 64 bit version with an AMD Athlon Dual Processor and an AliveNF6G motherboard ( please see attached files)

Weird is that I had just made a back up on this now not working external hard drive. It's a 500 GB ATA notebook drive in a case.

When I attach it to my notebook, I can see it within five seconds, so there's nothing wrong with it.

I'm experiencing the same problem with an external Hitachi hard drive, a 150 GB one, that also works well when attached to any other machines.

I was using a program called Pirriform Speccy to see the features. Image 2 shows that S.M.A.R.T for this drive isn't supported?

Please see attached PDF file.

I've Googled and searched, but didn't find any answers to this.

I'd deeply appreciate any advice. I've checked Device Manager, there's nothing wrong. Both drives are spinning, lights are on.

Thanks a lot in advance.

HD not supported.pdf

Edited October 20, 2015 by lostinisaan

[RichCor]

It's possible the USB ports aren't providing enough power for the drive (make sure you're using the shortest cable you've got).

Or it could be a USB support driver issue. Try downloading fresh USB Drivers from the support website (System or Motherboard) then deleting and erasing the existing set and replace with the fresh set.

[james512]

Check they have been assigned a drive letter in Disk Manager.

[Chicog]

Both good advice in the last two.

If they are unpowered drives you might try a Y-cable that has two USB connections.

And certainly check in Disk Management to see if they are being given a drive letter.

[Pib]

Very well could be Windows is not assigning a Drive letter....not auto-mounting the drive.

See the below thread...maybe you just need to issue the "automount enable" command. Quick and easy to find out.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/windows-7-does-not-assign-a-drive-letter/3c22131a-bd91-40a8-a060-c9484f571824?auth=1

[lostinisaan]

Both good advice in the last two.

If they are unpowered drives you might try a Y-cable that has two USB connections.

And certainly check in Disk Management to see if they are being given a drive letter.

The one drive, the old 160 BG Hitachi which works like a Swiss clockwork ( usually) does have such a cable. It's blinking, spinning, but I can't get any more signs that they're attached than the "Speccy program" I was using.

I had 260 updates over night, before the one in a case was read. I'm trying some stuff you guys have provided. Pretty much close to throw that god damn thing out of the window.

But no, there's an iron frame.....Thanks a lot, once more. Here's a more detailed report of the WHOLE system in MS office:

Khop Khun La Lai...........

MY 64 BIT PC ALL INFORMATION.docx

Edited October 20, 2015 by lostinisaan

[lostinisaan]

It's possible the USB ports aren't providing enough power for the drive (make sure you're using the shortest cable you've got).

Or it could be a USB support driver issue. Try downloading fresh USB Drivers from the support website (System or Motherboard) then deleting and erasing the existing set and replace with the fresh set.

Thanks a lot for your time. I'm using the shortest cables that are available. Will try the USB driver support issue now.

The machine already took too much time and I'm really pissed off. But it would be pretty stupid to give up now, after spending so much time for it.

Khop Khun La Lai.-

[lostinisaan]

Very well could be Windows is not assigning a Drive letter....not auto-mounting the drive.

See the below thread...maybe you just need to issue the "automount enable" command. Quick and easy to find out.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/windows-7-does-not-assign-a-drive-letter/3c22131a-bd91-40a8-a060-c9484f571824?auth=1

I've tried it, without success. ( I mean the enable automount) procedure.

But then I installed a very good program that finally helped me to get access to all my backups, which are on this drive the PC didn't recognize

The Minitool Partition Wizard for Technicians Edition v 7.8 made it very easy to label the drive and I could finally get it back working.

The disc wasn't active, but I was using it the day before 260 updates which took all night, made something that the machine couldn't read it.

Only The Lord Buddha might know the answer.

I'm still having trouble with my on all other machines well functioning external hard drive from Hitachi. Old, but good.

I've tried hundreds of webistes, but couldn't find anything that would be of help. Better to switch that god damned thing off now and do something that makes more sense.

Between working on two machines, I found some nice stuff Google is offering now for free. A VPN changer, a nice movie down loader, all integrated in the browser task bar.

I wasn't really shocked that the VPN changing program showed xhamster and plenty of other sites as the most "wanted" ones.

But I always had a fable for pets, so it's also in my bar now. Great to have a tool to visit CNN, plus plenty of other by the good general's team blocked sites.

Please see the attached image and tell me if I could change a setting, regarding the last two sentences. I've tried in BIOS settings, but had no opportunity to get to them.

How could I fix the "capable, but disabled" S.M.A.R.T ????? I'm at the end and will have a very nice and cold beer now.

Any ideas would be deeply appreciated. I feel like a Thai student know who graduated from Kindergarten..........

.

[RichCor]

What does Windows DRIVE MANAGER show?

[lostinisaan]

What does Windows DRIVE MANAGER show?

Exactly what the Mini Tool Partition Program does. Please see image:

[Pib]

Well, each of the external drives show a Drive Letter of (D:) and (H:) which is required for Windows to fully see them.

Out of curiosity did you use the Windows Disk management to see if they had a Drive Letter assigned before using the Mini Partition Wizard program? Maybe the Partition Wizard just assigned a missing drive letter which Windows Disk management can do also.

Glad you got the drives working.

[RichCor]

...and H: displays what? OK, I see from your run-on post that you've got this working:

Very well could be Windows is not assigning a Drive letter....not auto-mounting the drive.

See the below thread...maybe you just need to issue the "automount enable" command. Quick and easy to find out.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-hardware/windows-7-does-not-assign-a-drive-letter/3c22131a-bd91-40a8-a060-c9484f571824?auth=1

I've tried it, without success. ( I mean the enable automount) procedure.

But then I installed a very good program that finally helped me to get access to all my backups, which are on this drive the PC didn't recognize

The Minitool Partition Wizard for Technicians Edition v 7.8 made it very easy to label the drive and I could finally get it back working.

The disc wasn't active, but I was using it the day before 260 updates which took all night, made something that the machine couldn't read it.

[ ... ]

PRIOR POST EDITED

Edited October 20, 2015 by RichCor

[Pib]

Regarding the DMA 6 and SMART question, go into your motherboard BIOS and see if there are some Ultro DMA and SMART selections similar to below...below is a snapshot from an ASRock motherboard running BIOS similar to yours. Although this snapshot shows the IDE Master Drive selection in another screen you should be able to select the drive you want to tweak. Maybe worth a try.

[lostinisaan]

Well, each of the external drives show a Drive Letter of (D:) and (H:) which is required for Windows to fully see them.

Out of curiosity did you use the Windows Disk management to see if they had a Drive Letter assigned before using the Mini Partition Wizard program? Maybe the Partition Wizard just assigned a missing drive letter which Windows Disk management can do also.

Glad you got the drives working.

I seem to have a very bad week. Right after my last post, the unforeseeable and unexpected happened. After a reboot, the NDRL,( or similar) bla bla file was missing, no way to get that done. And I mean no way, not even in a short time hotel.............

Then the total flash. Acronis could not recover from the disc I was on about. The one that wasn't detected by the crook before, where I have all my PC's and my notebook backed up.

I really wanted to shoot somebody, preferable myself. This nasty bitch made me busy for a few days, because there's always something else that didn't work as it should.

I have two SATA discs inside the machine, many things are so modified that a Thai "technician" would have a hard time to understand what's up with it. Or let's say, the best guy would have huge problems to understand certain programs and the way the machine is wired. ( Or weird?)

Of course do I have the installation disk, but it didn't let me do a restore. Then I searched, because I thought that I might had created a Windows image on drive D, right after the Acronis back up.

And I was so happy when I finally found my Windows 7, 64 bit repair disc, I made once I had the back ups done.

The first try was negative and I almost had tears in my eyes. Wife gave me her phone and wanted me to change some settings.

I was so close to throw her phone against the wall, because our son was always using it for some stupid games, but never thought of a virus protection. When the set up ran, I fixed my wife's phone, put Dr. Web on it, which seems to be pretty good for Android phones.

The third try with the W 7 rescue disk was successful.It took about 30 minutes to have a sort of a system back. Part of the main Hard drive was gone.

Okay, after you guys' explanation, a piece of cake, by only using the Windows tools. gave it a letter, formatted it, just to make sure that that thing won't cause any troubles in the future.

Now I'm at a point where I was a few days ago. Will have to put some needed programs on tonight after changing the size of the partitions.

Something must have gone wrong by using too many registry tools and programs that might or might not interact in a way that nobody wants to deal with.

No idea what caused the total crash of the well functioning machine. Thanks a lot for your advice. Have a good one.

Can't believe that I've spent some days getting this piece of shit working and still working on it. I'm a fool, I know.

Edited October 20, 2015 by lostinisaan

[cyberfarang]

I recently updated from XP to windows 7 and had the same problem, my 2 external hard drives that worked fine with XP failed to display on Windows 7.

Was given only one option to solve the problem, that was to reformat my external hard drives. Not ideal because it meant losing all my data on the drives, but had no choice. Luckily I already had most of my backups on flash drives.

Reformatted the external hard drives, problem solved, they became accessible on Windows 7. Just mean`t I had to copy and paste my back ups into them again.

[lostinisaan]

I recently updated from XP to windows 7 and had the same problem, my 2 external hard drives that worked fine with XP failed to display on Windows 7.

Was given only one option to solve the problem, that was to reformat my external hard drives. Not ideal because it meant losing all my data on the drives, but had no choice. Luckily I already had most of my backups on flash drives.

Reformatted the external hard drives, problem solved, they became accessible on Windows 7. Just mean`t I had to copy and paste my back ups into them again.

Thanks for sharing. I believe that we sometimes go the most difficult way, without even seeing the trees in the forest. It's fact that adults think way more complicated when it comes to troubleshooting. Kids on the other hand don't have a problem to find the easy way.

That was the topic of my Thesis i had to write many moons ago.

I believe that kids are smarter than most adults when it comes to logic and imagination.

I've made various tests with adults who didn't find the logic answer to a relatively easy problem, while most kids had in in a few minutes.

Maybe we should start to think less complicated? And that's not just about computer problems.

Microsoft offers a "fix", showing a little mechanic for plenty of problems. I've tried a few and it worked, after doing useless and complicated stuff for many hours.

Here's a nice tool to get some USB problems sorted out: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/mats/windows_usb_diagnostics

But all negative things do have a positive side. We usually learn out of our mistakes. Learning by doing is the best way in my opinion.

Even when it sometimes sucks. Using the 10 minute fix with the "Mini Tool Wizard", or copying and pasting stuff for many hours should be worth to go different ways from time to time.,

I'm trying to take it easy, will have one more beer and watch the thingy doing its stuff.

Programs are only as good as the people who're using them. And again, back ups are worth gold. I'll always have an Acronis and a Windows Image for all machines in the future.

The Moral of the story is that I've wasted almost a week by doing weird things ( when I look at it now), but it won't happen again.

Thanks a lot to all the nice guys on this forum,their advice's really deeply appreciated. Cheers-

Edited October 20, 2015 by lostinisaan