No more access to HDD after Vista64 format.. Help!

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Parabellum

[H]ard|Gawd
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Nov 4, 2001
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Hello,

I've installed Vista 64 on my HTPC last week and to my astonishment, I can no longer access to my TB HDD where I store all my ripped DVD, mp3, pictures, etc. In device manager, I see that the drive works but I cannot see it in explorer. All my stuff have been stored for a while and I did rip about 60 DVD while I was still on XP 32. Now that I am on Vista 64, it seems that the only way to have access to my storage drive would be to format it, which I REALLY don't want as I have about 700gb of stuff. Is there a way to active the drive without having to reformat it?

Thanks,

Serge
 
I swear, I've said it over and over again: Vista 64 is garbage on an HTPC. It's nothing but a pile of problems.

Install Vista 32 and see your videos show back up, also you'll be able to watch them too (which isn't going to happen very easily under Vista 64).
 
Check that you have a drive letter mapped to the HD in Disk Management, if not, select the partition/drive, right click and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".

That should fix it for you.

Disk Management is in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.
 
Check drive management first as suggested, and if that doesn't work check to see if you have the latest drivers for your controller. I use an Adaptec 5805 controller and in Vista 64 I could only see one of my arrays until I installed the drivers from Adaptec.
 
Well, I guess I haven't read your tough about V64.. I have not yet registered it so I guess I could sell it. BTW, is it normal that Vista swaps badly on the HDD, it is very annoying...

I have tried to swap the letter to "J" and it did nothing. I have noticed however that the file system is "RAW". I remember my friend had this problem happen to him but I don't remember how he did solve it. Google now!
 
ctrudel said:
Check drive management first as suggested, and if that doesn't work check to see if you have the latest drivers for your controller. I use an Adaptec 5805 controller and in Vista 64 I could only see one of my arrays until I installed the drivers from Adaptec.
Click to expand...

Adaptec? I don't recall I have an adaptec device :confused: I'm using the SATA ports on my P5Q Pro which is the ICH10 SB.

Actual system is in sig BTW
 
Vista only does the drive thrashing for the first little bit while its building the index. The drive showing up RAW though is a bad sign. I'm assuming it was formatted with NTFS?

I've never had any issues with drives moving between XP and Vista systems. Are you sure you didn't delete the partition on your media drive when you installed Vista?
 
darkpaw said:
Vista only does the drive thrashing for the first little bit while its building the index. The drive showing up RAW though is a bad sign. I'm assuming it was formatted with NTFS?

I've never had any issues with drives moving between XP and Vista systems. Are you sure you didn't delete the partition on your media drive when you installed Vista?
Click to expand...
Thats always possible. I have had this happen to me once moving from XP to Vista 64 and I ended up going back to XP and moving the contents of the RAW affected drive to a net share before installing Vista. yeah, I had to erase the drive and put the content back onto it for Vista 64 to see it (sucks that I had to go back to Vista 32 though because of some V64 issues).
 
Thanks for your input. Well, I fiddled a bit with Data Recovery Wizard and I've been able to recover some of my datas but the problem is that I cannot convert the partition from RAW to NTFS so the only way to get my stuff back is to recover all my datas, put it on another temporary drive, format my storage drive and put my datas back on it. Since I have 700gb of stuff, I will need another 1tb drive for transfering files or pay a computer shop to do it for me. Other than that, I see no other viable options that I know of. At least, I haven't lost all my stuff which is I believe the most important part.

But since I am on Vista64, do you think it is going to happen again if I revert back to XP or Vista32?

Thanks again,

Serge
 
Logan321 said:
Check that you have a drive letter mapped to the HD in Disk Management, if not, select the partition/drive, right click and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths".

That should fix it for you.

Disk Management is in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.
Click to expand...

Do this as he suggested first....
 
CrimandEvil said:
I swear, I've said it over and over again: Vista 64 is garbage on an HTPC. It's nothing but a pile of problems.

Install Vista 32 and see your videos show back up, also you'll be able to watch them too (which isn't going to happen very easily under Vista 64).
Click to expand...

This is a very ignorant statement. I've used Vista x64 on multiple HTPC's and it's worked fine. The OP's problem is almost certainly something else, as millions of users of Vista x64 have no problem seeing data on drives in their systems.
 
devil22 said:
This is a very ignorant statement. I've used Vista x64 on multiple HTPC's and it's worked fine. The OP's problem is almost certainly something else, as millions of users of Vista x64 have no problem seeing data on drives in their systems.
Click to expand...
First off, he's coming from an XP32 install to a Vista 64 install; second I've ran into the exact same issue when I tried to go from MCE2k5 to Vista 64. Third, I've tried Vista 64 three times on my HTPC which runs Vista 32 right now and running perfectly fine which is the opposite under Vista 64. I've tried running Vista 64 on several machines, several times The non HTPCs ran just fine; the HTPCs all ran like shit because of a few things:
1.) Driver issues.
2.) Codec issues

Anyone that has tried to run Vista 64 on an HTPC knows these issues very well.

On the other hand I've seen many run Vista 64 on their HTPCs just peachy fine but they all acknowledge how much of a PITA it was to get working and finding the right codecs. Your "your stupid cause it works for me" response helps nothing because it contains nothing. Millions may be running V64 just fine but that for every one person who has no issues I've seen, easily, eight others that are and all do back to those exact same two issues.

So thank you for your massively ignorant response. Just because you don't have issues doesn't mean others aren't or others don't. I've tried going down that path and I currently use Vista 64 on my desktop with no issues but that doesn't mean it's all sunshine and lollipops when it comes to HTPCs.
 
CrimandEvil said:
First off, he's coming from an XP32 install to a Vista 64 install; second I've ran into the exact same issue when I tried to go from MCE2k5 to Vista 64. Third, I've tried Vista 64 three times on my HTPC which runs Vista 32 right now and running perfectly fine which is the opposite under Vista 64. I've tried running Vista 64 on several machines, several times The non HTPCs ran just fine; the HTPCs all ran like shit because of a few things:
1.) Driver issues.
2.) Codec issues

Anyone that has tried to run Vista 64 on an HTPC knows these issues very well.

On the other hand I've seen many run Vista 64 on their HTPCs just peachy fine but they all acknowledge how much of a PITA it was to get working and finding the right codecs. Your "your stupid cause it works for me" response helps nothing because it contains nothing. Millions may be running V64 just fine but that for every one person who has no issues I've seen, easily, eight others that are and all do back to those exact same two issues.

So thank you for your massively ignorant response. Just because you don't have issues doesn't mean others aren't or others don't. I've tried going down that path and I currently use Vista 64 on my desktop with no issues but that doesn't mean it's all sunshine and lollipops when it comes to HTPCs.
Click to expand...

No it's your response that is ignorant. My htpc works just fine and all I had to do was go to asus's site and download the intel chipset drivers, go to nvidia's site and download the gtx 260 64-bit drivers, and go download vista codecs 32-bit and 64-bit. That's it. Calling THAT a "pita" is silly, to say the least. Maybe you should ask for help before barking at other people and making asinine and ignorant statements, but hey, it's your life do what you like. And the point of my post wasn't to say "I don't have problems so no one has problems" my point was to show that it is not a fundamental problem that can't be overcome, it's just a matter of doing things the right way. Have a nice day.
 
Dude, aorry to brake it to you but thats a gaming rig. Not an HTPC and as such your comments don't really matter. I said my gaming rig runs fine with Vista 64 on it too. What I said is that an HTPC does not. Of course it's not a "fundamental" problem; that doesn't make it any less of a problem. Especially when you have no problems doesn't mean this dude or others aren't having them. :rolleyes:

Son, thats like driving only a honda and let commenting on how a ferrari handles without knowing anything about one.
 
i had this happened before. Sounds like your partition table got fsked. I used linux to recreate it the last time it happened. I could not find a free windows utility to get it done but in fairness I didn't search too hard since I use linux for everything sans my htpc.
 
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