My DAW had a bad D: drive (as reported by BIOS and Spinrite). I had WD ship me an identical replacement under warranty. I tried to replace it and couldn't so took it to a local shop yesterday afternoon. When I went to pick it up that evening they told me they had to reinstall Windows 7 Ultimate (thereby wiping my C: drive) because the system wasn't recognizing D: under my originally installed OS. I was pretty steamed but paid and took it home.
It worked okay for a while. I reset several environment variables because C: is only a 60 Gb SSD. I turned off hibernation and set PAGEFILE.SYS and TEMP to D:. This saved 20 Gb of valuable space. Note that I had done this on the original system. (Incidentally, I tried to reinstall my original copy of Windows but couldn't because the system didn't recognize my mouse or keyboard during the install process.)
When I rebooted this evening the system had "lost" D: again. It doesn't even show up in the BIOS.
You will understand that I'm pretty unhappy right now. Being unable to work or play guitar because of my broken finger I had hoped to spend the time learning BIAB 2012.5 (which I haven't even installed yet) and laying down beds. Instead I'm trying to install basic system drivers and fighting with a system that has apparently become unstable. I'm hoping that someone will be logged on who can give some effective pointers.
I've been in the BIOS and don't see anywhere that I can switch HD settings. I'm completely out of my depth and don't know whether this is hardware, software, or a combination.
Thanks in advance,
Richard
Edited to add: I shut down, opened the case, and pressed the SATA cable onto the drive. When I restarted lo! there was D:. If that's all it was, great, I suppose. Scary to think that it didn't occur to the tech I paid to do the job in the first place. I'll keep you posted.
I see your point about the win 7 re-install. They should have at least asked before doing something so drastic, and so unecessary!
Quote:
They should have at least asked before doing something so drastic
Yeah, we would have called first .. or made a backup before proceeding.
Re-installing OS is a last step and discussed before with owner before doing.
Data integrity and recovery can be crucial.
If wiggling the connection seems to have fixed it I would be keeping an eye on that particular piece of hardware (at both ends of the connection).
FWIW, I've had it happen recently with a SATA drive (I don't like the connections they use as standard). I reconnected the drive and BIOS found it. I backed up the data right away out of paranoia, but it seems to be fine since then.
Actually, I would replace the SATA cable. I've come across a few that are so stiff, any movement causes them to come loose from the drive or the motherboard. I had one that just wouldn't stay on and had a similar experience where it wouldn't recognize the drive. I used a different cable to held tighter and the problem went away.
They should not have re-installed Windows if there was nothing wrong with Windows. It would have been ticked off big time. :-(
But on a brighter note (see how I worked some music into it), Merry Christmas, Richard!
Richard - from your description, it appears to be a hardware problem with a simple fix:
1. For problems with peripheral devices that are natively supported by the BIOS (SATA and IDE hard drives and CD/DVD drives, floppy drives etc.) there's a basic rule of thumb: if the BIOS don't see it, ain't nobody gonna see it.
2. If the BIOS doesn't see it, it's a cabling problem about 90% of the time. Always double-check and/or swap the cables first. Make sure every cable is securly connected.
3. SATA cables are especially prone to poor connections (just look at the design; it ain't rocket science). I've found that the best way to overcome this is to secure the cable itself into position with nylon cable ties, such that the weight of the cable is not pulling on either connector.
As an aside, I would strongly suggest that you not return to that computer shop. Amateurs.
Jon
One more thing -
Some SATA cables are equipped with metal spring-like connectors that ensure a secure connection to the mating devices (motherboard and drive). This virtually eliminates the problem described above. Trouble is, they're rarely included with the purchase of a drive.
Jon
Agree, the cheaper SATA cables are a pain, and I just go for the "better" ones with the locks on both ends to eliminate problems. I have only ran into a few situations where the clips caused problems, and that was on the motherboards end where the SATA jacks were super close together.
This reminds me of the memory thread, where sometimes a re-seat of the memory modules will cure most problems....
YA know with all of these answers that point to a simple cable issue Richard is getting madder & madder. I only live 100 miles from him and I can feel his foot prints shaking the ground as he paces back and forth. I wouldn't want to be that tech tomorrow.
It was totally senseless.
We're big on the Serenity Prayer here. I did my very to remain calm throughout, from the time I realized I couldn't even remove the old drive myself (and broke the locking connector on the quality SATA cable in the process) until I was told that my C: drove had been summarily wiped without notification or request, and even when I pressed the new, low-quality, nonlocking cable fully onto the drive myself.
I will have a word with the owner of the shop, and no, I won't be doing business with them again. Bottom line is, they did (more or less) exactly what I asked them to--R/R a drive and cable--at 3 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon. Even if they did cause me to lose all my software and drivers. Idiots.
Did I mention that I was in the process of moving? So everything was packed away. I just this last half hour located the disks for my primary sequencer (Reason). As soon as I install a couple of versions of BIAB I'll get that loaded and be nearly back to where I was. Also in the serenity corner, note that I wouldn't be nearly this far along if I hadn't broken my finger (I'd be busy working), and that I didn't lose any data--everything was backed up on an external drive AND on my old DAW. Except for many hours of tedious work I'm in pretty good shape.
Now, if I WAS feeling bitchy I'd bill the shop for my time at $40 an hour, because I'm a nice guy, and because I'm not a certified tech. (If I was I'd charge $125 an hour.)
Signed, Reasonably Gruntled
So during the Frank Costanza "serenity now" period, what exactly was wrong that those morons would format and reload your OS drive? Was there anything at all wrong with your OS drive that I can add your story to the reasons I do not trust solid state drives yet?
The issue appears to be that the SATA cable wasn't securely connected to D: (WD 1 Tb 7,200-RPM standard HD). Nothing to do with the SSD at all. Their reasoning: "The system didn't recognize the new drive, so we had to reinstall Windows and drivers." FWIW, the shop personnel are not of, erm, domestic origin. That has never been an issue before; it's true of most of the shops around here. The owner seemed to have his stuff together, his tech just isn't as good as either one of them thinks he is. Near the end of the transaction the tech said, "This is the most advanced PC we've ever seen." I'll bet it is.
There was a line in "Bad Teacher" where the gym coach asked the bad teacher "Have you ever considered getting into another line of work? ANY other line of work?" That applies here, because that tech should be looking for work in some field other than computer repair.
How do you miss a disconnected SATA cable during your initial visual inspection? Answer: He never did one. He wanted to run up a tab, which he did, possibly following orders of the owner. Had it been me I would have reconnected the cable, rebooted, called you and told you to pick up your computer and have a nice day.
At the VERY least they should be refunding you what you paid them for doing work that did not need to be done. I doubt you will press them because you are probably a lot nicer guy than I am, but if I was in that position I would be writing to newspapers, ripping them on every blog I can find, and picketing with a thick stack of documents explaining that they are the worst techs in the history of silicon.
What they did was akin to you bringing you car in for a brake job and them painting it and charging you for the paint job. Awful work to not do a visual.
On a related note: Now I have a 100 Mb "System Reserved" F: drive that I have never seen before. The tech assured me that this is a normal part of Windows 7. Is this something that is there but normally hidden? (I set my system to show all files and file extensions.) I don't recall seeing it before they worked on it. It doesn't affect anything but subsequent drive numbering, but it offends my sense of elegance.
That disk partition does not need to have a drive letter assigned, so you can remove the drive letter (and then not see the drive in Windows Explorer). In general, it should not be removed, but...
Hack to Remove 100 MB System Reserved Partition.
I haven't tried any of this, so let the buyer beware and have a good system image first.
But you did ask...