SOLVED Windows 7 doesn't see my storage drive

[Alaric]

It's off. I'm working on multiple redundancies for my music folder as Winders tends to bugger that up and I have over 47 GB of music in that folder.

 

[LutaWicasa]

If you have what ya want off'n that drive....just totally nuke it and start completely fresh under 7. Since Win 10 ain't in the picture any longer you shouldn't have any probs with going GPT if you so desire.

 

[Alaric]

That's my hope. Hope, however, figured prominently in my first two marriage proposals. Lemme tell ya' how well that worked out.......

 

[LutaWicasa]

Hope springs eternal

 

[Alaric]

What "springs" depends on the fertilizer.....LMAO!

 

[Vishera]

If we spent what we spend on these damn machines on gifts for the missus instead they'd never be unhappy. Well, in theory. I'm sure they'd complain about the diamond on the ring being 2 carats instead of 3 LOL.

 

[Alaric]

I'm happily single. All I have to do is figure out the disk part syntax now. Disk Management isn't offering me any options other than delete the drive. My schedule lately hasn't left me much time for playing with my computer.

 

[Vishera]

Getting ever closer. Ironic, isn't it, that working with computers leaves you tinkering with everyone else's instead of your own.

 

[Alaric]

Getting ever closer. Ironic, isn't it, that working with computers leaves you tinkering with everyone else's instead of your own.

A point that has amused me on several occasions. LOL. The last several weeks have entailed multiple salvage operations ("Hey, I found this computer and it looks OK. Can you fix it?" Me: "Sure. Is that a 9mm or a .38 hole?"), an upgrade that turned in to a new build, a case swap that turned in to an upgrade+, and a new build that has had more twists and turns than a mountain road in Peru. Followed by a change in my housing situation, a daughter who needs braces, an upcoming visit to the other side of the country, and now I'm just waiting for the *&#! partridge in a pear tree.

 

[Vishera]

Ouch. Braces are a bugger to get done. My little sister had them done, poor kid couldn't eat right for a week because they hurt her teeth so bad. Quite a costly strip of metal too. You could always look at InvisAlign, it's generally cheaper and not as painful. Anywho perhaps we should keep the thread on track before the mods get a bit snippy with us, eh?

 

[Alaric]

Agreed. Can anyone help me with disk part syntax? LOL I tried to format the HDD with disk part. I selected the disk, then the partition, and was told no volume was selected. It seems nothing can be done without a "volume" and W7 refuses to recognize any of the drive as a volume.

 

[knoober]

Diskpart > list disk> select disk X> clean/clean all.... Then wait. On a 4tb spinner clean all could take the rest of the year so I would let clean do its work overnight.

After clean runs you should be able to format.... Off the top of my head:

Diskpart > list disk > select disk X > create partition primary (with start sector then end sector I believe)

Select partition X > Format fs=file system of your choice (probably NTFS) quick

You can also add drive letter, disk label and a free other thing vs during format but you can take care of that in disk management too. As a matter of fact you can do everything after "clean" from disk management if you want. Hope that helps

 

[Alaric]

And, finally. Now to move my data back to the HDD and change a few storage paths in Winders 7 and I'm good to go. Thank you all!

 

[knoober]

1st : congratulations

2nd : damn damn and double damn! We should have tested this drive under Win10 in a vm to see if it could be seen. Would be good fodder for those who like shiny hats, and everyone else too

 

[Alaric]

Win 10 saw it just fine. No problems at all. There is no question that Win 10 did some funky stuff when the drive was initially set up. I probably could have corrected it in the W7 registry if I knew where to look and what to change. I may get another HDD to research just that.

 

[Vishera]

I'm glad I've put my system backups for my photos, music, et cetera on OneDrive and such. Having to go through all of this I probably would've said "To hell with the family photos" And tossed the damn drive out the window!

 

[knoober]

I may get another HDD to research just that.

Count me as already subbed to that thread

I will stop by the local shop and see if they have anything AM2-AM3+ for cheap and do some quick testing myself... Ive got most of the hardware except the cpu just collecting dust after all. Not sure if it will matter that all I have is a 500gb SATA drive to test with though... We will have to see what the local guys have...

 

[Alaric]

Aaaaannnd now my W7 drive won't show as a boot option in my BIOS. It's available as an option in Boot Override, but doesn't even show in the regular boot list. It keeps trying to make the SSD formerly known as Windows 10 the first boot device, and it's been wiped and formatted in GPT, so there isn't even a MBR partition. I had to roll back to a previous BIOS because the new one wouldn't hold the XMP profile. Gigabyte boards are rapidly losing their charm for me. Nice audio, when it works, but I should have gone Asus and a sound card. Live and learn.

 

[knoober]

Aaaaannnd now my W7 drive won't show as a boot option in my BIOS. It's available as an option in Boot Override, but doesn't even show in the regular boot list. It keeps trying to make the SSD formerly known as Windows 10 the first boot device, and it's been wiped and formatted in GPT, so there isn't even a MBR partition. I had to roll back to a previous BIOS because the new one wouldn't hold the XMP profile. Gigabyte boards are rapidly losing their charm for me. Nice audio, when it works, but I should have gone Asus and a sound card. Live and learn.

1) consider trying diskpart> list disk> select disk> clean all on that drive that Windows would like to default to. Takes more time but does a more thorough job than clean does, and I suspect that it will not try to seek that drive anymore.

2) are you sure there isnt some sort of UEFI shenanigans going on? Im not real certain about all the UEFI particulars but I do know that it can cause bogus happenings like lack of boot (and probably even ability to see disks). I know this though, if you installed the OS in UEFI you have to stay, and vice versa.

Also, dont forget the whole list of checkng the connections, reseating the drive.

 

[Alaric]

1) consider trying diskpart> list disk> select disk> clean all on that drive that Windows would like to default to. Takes more time but does a more thorough job than clean does, and I suspect that it will not try to seek that drive anymore.

That's how I cleaned it. A 120 GB SSD takes no time at all. Is there a reason the main partition of the OS drive isn't marked as 'active' in Disk Management? Although I can't imagine that has anything to do with the BIOS' wonkiness. LOL