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General discussion

Compaq Presario SR1639UK Desktop PC Hard drive problem

by bax22 Jul 2, 2007 4:31AM PDT

AMD 64X2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
2.19GHz 3.00GB of RAM
XP Home Service Pack 2

My problem
I have to do a disc recovery using the disc I made when purchasing the pc.I have 2 x 160gig hard drives - these showed in "my computer" as drives C - D - & E.
Drive C was partioned and held the recovery info: this is set by Compaq from new and the Partition when labled as Drive E. My other drive was Drive D.
After doing the recovery I now show 2 drives instead of the 3.The problem is that drive C is fine and holds my operating system and the partiotion has now changed from drive E to drive D BUT held on drive C. (HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE)
My other drive D now doesnt show in "my computer".
I can see the drive under Computer Management and it's listed as NEW VOLUME and status is Healthy (Active). When I right click to try to assign a DRIVE letter to it,it will only allow me the option to delete the partition or use the help.

All I want to do is get my drive back so I can use it again.I have tried the HP help and email sup: they were next to useless.
PS I dont want to format the drive as it holds my sister in laws wedding pics and my wife will kill me!!!!
Any one please help me.
Thanks John

Discussion is locked

11 Posts
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A couple..
by jackintucson Jul 2, 2007 4:55AM PDT

of questions.... Does the 'C' drive now show a total of 160gb? How big was the original 'E' drive? What OS are you running? Is the 'C' drive being used for something other than the OS?..i.e. program files?

Don't panic.....yet. I don't think you have lost any data. Answering the Qs above will give us a road to go OK?

and life goes on...

Jack

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reply
by bax22 Jul 2, 2007 5:05AM PDT

C drive is still 160 gig (155 gig) is the normal drive and holds all my OS and files (XP Home) Within this drive 5 gig is partitioned for the recovery prog:

This is how they look in Computer Management
NEW VOLUME Partition Basic NTFS HEALTHY (ACTIVE) 149.05 GB FREE SPACE 23.62 GB
C Partition Basic NTFS HEALTHY (SYSTEM) 145.48 GB FREE SPACE 129.35 GB
D Partition Basic FAT 32 HEALTHY 3.55GB FREE SPACE 366MB

Hope this helps - thanks John

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It seems..
by jackintucson Jul 2, 2007 5:20AM PDT

based on your info, that the 'D' drive is now your recovery drive. It's size of 3.5gb says that and the your second 160gb is now missing. Is that correct? The 'New Volume' looks to be your old 'D' (data) drive? Does that sound right??

and life goes on...

Jack

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Jack
by bax22 Jul 2, 2007 5:24AM PDT

That's correct.
The NEW VOLUME is my old D drive that holds pics - music etc. No prog: files on this dis.
Thanks

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All you should have to do now...
by jackintucson Jul 2, 2007 5:29AM PDT

is go into 'computer management' and assign the 'new volume' a letter. This works as long as you don't have any programs 'pointing' to the old 'D' drive for data. If that's the case you should be able to rename the 'D' drive to 'E' and the new volume to 'D'. Let us know.

and life goes on...

Jack

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No luck
by bax22 Jul 2, 2007 5:58AM PDT

I changed the small 3.55gb drive to letter Z
For some reason it will not allow me to change the letter for the new volume drive.When I right click it only allows me the options to either Delete Partition or Help.
All the others such as change drive letter - format etc are greyed out.

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Oh wellllll...
by jackintucson Jul 2, 2007 6:08AM PDT

it was worth a try. After you did the recovery, did you perform updates to the OS? You just may have to do what Grif suggested. Try this, take the 'new volume' out of line, reboot, that should still give you the 'C' and 'D' drive. If so, power down again and put the other drive back in line and boot up. Tell me what you have then? Don't worry, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.

and life goes on...

Jack

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I did
by bax22 Jul 2, 2007 6:13AM PDT

updates etc.I have already tried removing drive and rebooting about 20 times - I've tried changing the leads etc.
If I try to do a repair to the drive instead of a complete re-install will this work?

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I don't know...
by jackintucson Jul 2, 2007 6:33AM PDT

but I don't think it'll hurt to try. If that doesn't work you are closer to re-doing the recovery. You have come across an error that has no ready answer to it other than a recovery. The drive assignment routines are probably corrupted. Don't know why. It could be something caused by Compaq's (my guess) recovery routines or the OS itself. Let me know.

and life goes on...

Jack

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Try Doing The Recovery Again But This Time...
by Grif Thomas Former Forum moderator Jul 2, 2007 4:58AM PDT

...unplug the second hard drive before running the recovery partition process.. After the Recovery is finished and everything is working correctly, then plug the second hard drive in again. It should then be recognized correctly.

Hope this helps.

Grif

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grif
by bax22 Jul 2, 2007 5:10AM PDT

hoping to avoid this as its already taken me 2 days to re-install all my other info.I will do this as a last resort - tHANKS jOHN

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