Hard drive problems
About
On this page I wanted to maintain a list of common hard drive problems - especially problems I had personally encountered on Windows.
Problems
PROBLEM:
A second hard drive is recognized by the BIOS (it appears when the computer is booting), but does not appear in Windows Explorer. This is a problem I have a lot because I have removable drives, and OFTEN, after removing/reinserting/swapping my slave it disappears.
SOLUTION:
There could be many problems, but most likely there is a drive letter conflict, preventing the slave HD from being that letter (in my case 'D'). This might not be immediately apparent because one of your removable drives (in my case my pen USB stick) might be assigned that letter, but won't appear unless it is connected. To solve this: connect all removable drives you can think of to your computer, then go: Start Button > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. In the left panel, select "Disk Management" (under storage). If you notice one of the removable drives is your desired letter, right click it and "Change Drive Letter and Path", and chose a non-conflicting letter. Now restart your computer. If this doesn't work keep searching Google... maybe your problem is more serious.
At this stage you may need to open your computer and swap drives around.
