Local Hard Drive Missing After Windows 8 Refresh?
Jul 24, 2014
I had been using my Dell Inspiron 15R 5521 with the factory installed Windows 8 Single Language version with a 1 TB Hard Drive. Its been over an year, i have been using it.
I used to install my programs in the C: Drive and separate my project related files, mp3s, etc in the D: drive so should their be any virus attack or anything unexpected, i could just format the C: Drive and have all my applications re-installed, which is no big deal for me.
Yesterday I had a very unexpected thing go down. My laptop started acting funny, it started restarted on its own over and over again and goes to the big blue screen notifiying me that the laptop had to be restarted.
Since i was under notion my D: Drive is safe, and the worse thing that could happen would a virus attack on the C: drive, i decided to refresh my PC because it was doing all sorts of weird stuff.
After refreshing my PC, I lost the entire D: drive.
Right now, my D: drive is my DVD drive. I can't figure out how to recover the other drive and its files. My Refreshing i had taken a backup as requested by the wizard but i couldnt view what all files are being taken as backup.
Looks like, it has only taken the backup of my C: Drive.
View 9 Replies
ADVERTISEMENT
Oct 12, 2013
I have two Internal Hard disks in my system. First one is partitioned and used for system. i don't have problem on this hard disk. My second hard disk is 500 GB, and is not partitioned. I m using this drive for storing movies and music. The problem I faced is two of the folders are missing from this drive. THese two folders have several files. All other folders and files are intact. I just checked hard disk's used space and found to be 463 GB. I then selected all folders and viewed the combined spaces(including hidden and system folders) and I found it to be 389 GB only. Where are my these two folders? How can I retrieve it? Where is (463-389=74 GB) of space which is included in drive's "Used Space" metrics.
My Computer is running on Windows 8
View 9 Replies
View Related
Jun 15, 2014
what do I do if the refresh install on Windows 8.1 says that I'm missing files?
I installed Windows 8 from a retail disc and upgraded to 8.1 via Windows Update. I can't use the Windows 8 disc, it says invalid media.
View 6 Replies
View Related
Nov 28, 2013
I recently did an update of my machine from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1. The update process did not show any errors or warnings and by the time it finished I was under the impression that everything went smooth.
After the update I was testing the environment and discovered that one of my desktop applications stopped working, I went to the developer's website and indeed I found there is a known issue with their software on 8.1 and to solve it, I had to completely uninstall the software and then install it once more. So I went to Programs and Features in order to do so and to my surprise the Uninstall button was missing from the interface. Right-clicking an item and selecting uninstall from the menu gives a warning message suggesting that the application might have already been uninstalled and asks if I wanted to remove the application from the Programs list. However, clicking OK or Cancel just closes the message box and nothing happens.
So I went and tried to Refresh My PC; Once I clicked Refresh My PC the verification process started and indeed it told my that some system files are missing and that it should take care of it provided I insert my Windows disc. Now since its an OTA update from Win 8 to 8.1 I thought that MS knows that some people will not have a physical copy of 8.1 and so I inserted my Windows 8 Pro System Builder disc hoping it would work, but sadly as you might have guessed, it did not. It told me that I needed the 8.1 recovery disc.
Now I have been looking everywhere for a recovery image to download and use to fix my problem, everywhere I go it suggests that I make my own copy. But how am I supposed to do that if my Windows is faulty and has missing files. I really don't wanna go back to Windows 8 and re-upgrade to 8.1. I have a monitored internet bandwidth and I cannot go and download the 3 GB 8.1 update once more.
How can I repair my 8.1 machine?
I came across this article describing how to get an ISO image for 8.1 with a Windows 8 product Key. However, entering my Windows 8 Pro System Builder (OEM) key in the box fails and tells me that the key I entered is not for this product.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Mar 19, 2013
I've had a lot of trouble with my samsung laptop. The HDD has been replaced but I now cannot do a refresh or reset. I get the message"Some files are missing. Your Windows installation or recovery media will provide these files". The laptop came with Windows 8 installed so I do not have the installation discs. I can do a factory restore by pressing f4 on start up successfully but still shows the above message trying to refresh. What caused this and what can I do about it?
View 4 Replies
View Related
Apr 23, 2014
I have new windows 8.1 installed with latest updates.
I have a C drive as my OS drive, and D drive for my documents.
My D drive (formatted as NTFS) has indexing switched on.
But, when I go into indexing options / modify / show all locations, my D drive is not displayed.
I just can't figure it out, this worked just fine under windows 7. I checked the drive authorities and I am the owner to the drive root+ all subfolders and have full authorisation to drive root + subfolders also.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Aug 18, 2014
So I want to move my User folder called james_000 from my Windows (C) drive into my Local Disk (D) drive. Is there any easy and fast way to do this? I'm running out of space in my Windows (C) drive and this one folder holds 60 gigabits of data.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Mar 5, 2013
I'm booting off my SSD which is drive C: and I have games and programs on an extra hard drive which was origanally drive H: but after a restart it switched to I: and when I go into Disk Management to change it Drive H: isn't there.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Dec 26, 2012
I have a 2TB Western Digital My Book Essentials, it's filled with tons of old photos, movies, docs, games, and I'm scared to think of what else. The SATA to USB connector broke on it, so I took the drive apart and put it inside my computer. I opened up device manager because it wasn't showing up automatically and the 2TB is showing up as unallocated, I'm freaking out now because I'm scared the data was somehow deleted.What do I do?
edit: I realize also this isn't directly related to Windows 8 (besides the fact it's the OS I'm on), but I don't know where else to post it. I'd also like to say that I had a really deep feeling the drive was going to break continually for about two weeks before it happened, so if you have a similar feeling about something, don't ignore it!
View 9 Replies
View Related
Jun 22, 2014
Can you save to hard drive and One Drive at Same Time?
View 2 Replies
View Related
Aug 1, 2013
I am trying to use a system drive to store Refresh Images on.
I can share the drive & access it from the Desktop & Command Prompt but not the Elevated Command Prompt.
Just thought it would be easier than having a USB drive attached & hitting the battery.
View 2 Replies
View Related
Jul 10, 2013
I know there is good software out there to clone/image my hard drive and restore it to a new SSD drive. I'm just wondering though, since my laptop is brand new, I made a full recovery to a USB drive and included the OEM recovery partition.
Couldn't I just swap out the old HDD with the new SSD and boot with the recovery stick and do a full recovery back to the new SSD?
Also, however I do this, recover or image backup/restore, do I need to do some type of SSD alignment? I can't find a clear answer on that.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Jun 21, 2014
Have decided to take the plunge to reset my computer (because Windows Store would not open). Booted from the installation disk but cannot Reset or Refresh, I get "The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."
View 6 Replies
View Related
Oct 1, 2013
Either with my startup today, or sometime in the last day or two, all my drives/partitions in Windows Explorer (and XYplorer) have lost their labels and are now showing as "Local Disk." Looking in Windows 8 Computer Management and EaseUs Partition Manager, the labels are there, as shown in the screenshot. I ran all three main repair modules of Yamicsoft Windows 8 Manager and there have been a few reboots, but still the same.
View 8 Replies
View Related
Jun 27, 2014
I'm setting up for the first time a Homegroup (on Windows 8.1) between laptop and desktop. So far, Im impressed with the speed of transmission from one computer to the other. However, I noticed that I can only access the C: drive as well as the Library stuff such as Music, Pictures, Desktop, Downloads, etc folders. I would like to be able to access from my laptop the OTHER DRIVES on my desktop PC. What's the best way to do this?
View 9 Replies
View Related
May 24, 2013
I've got a laptop with two NTFS partitions on it; one for Win8, and another for storage of random things.
The problem is: When I open the "Computer" window, it only shows me the C: drive. Other things are there... the DVD-RW, network folders, other computers on the net, etc. But the H: drive isn't there. HOWEVER..... if I go up to the address bar and type in "H:" and hit <Enter>, it takes me to that drive, and the H: drive suddenly appears in the folder-pane on the left of the window.
It does the same thing for any USB drives I plug in. I can type their drive letters into the address bar, and then it'll take me to that drive and it'll show up in the left-hand folder pane. But then, when I navigate away from that drive, it disappears again.
It's like Windows is hiding them from me unless I know the address, kinda like how putting "$" at the end of a shared folder name does it with network shares.
View 4 Replies
View Related
Dec 6, 2013
Recently, I tried to use the Optical CD/DVD Drive to play a CD, but every time I insert a CD, the drive itself will read it, but the computer won't recognize it. I ended up going to the Device Manager and can't find the Optical Drive!
I was using this a few weeks ago and it worked fine (this was after a Windows 8.1 update).
I'm not sure how I can make my laptop recognize the Optical drive.
I would assume I'm missing a drive, but I can't seem to find it on the Lenovo Driver page.
I have a Lenovo G505 Series Laptop running Windows 8.1 64-bit.
I would really like to have my CD/DVD Drive working again.
View 5 Replies
View Related
Dec 29, 2013
I am new to Windows 8, and first time with a laptop. I have 1tb hard drive (minus a few gb) in c drive. d drive is being used as recovery
This is how it was setup. What I would like to do is to partition the amount of space i have from c drive into another drive.
Can manage to partition some hard drive space over to another driver letter, if i do a fresh install of windows, will this new drive be formatted too?
(Just asking this because when I owned a desktop computer, I had two drives. A c-drive and a d-drive. When I re-installed windows 7 on the desktop, all my files were still available on the d-drive, hence asking the above last question).
View 4 Replies
View Related
May 16, 2013
A few months ago my laptop broke and it needed repairs. The HDD was replaced and i got my laptop back with one new HDD inside and one "broke" HDD in a bag. Later the "Repaired" Laptop crashed again so i bought a new one and took the HDD out of the old laptop. I bought a HDD case with USB connection and both of the HDD's where intact. The oldest HDD contained windows 7 and the replaced contained windows 8. Now i want to sell the Windows 8 HDD so i want it to be clean of personal files but i want it to keep windows 8. I thought the solution was to run the windows 8 on the HDD so i can use the program deletation program of that windows 8. The problem is i dont know how to run windows 8 of a hard drive. I have searched the internet but with no success.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Aug 23, 2014
My wife just got a new PC running Windows 8.1 Pro and she wants to re-connect her external hard drive that has all her game files on it to the new PC.
While the new PC recognizes the drive it states that it needs to be initialized , doing so would wipe the data currently on the drive which would be unacceptable. How to get the new PC to recognize this drive and its data?
View 3 Replies
View Related
Aug 18, 2014
I have just tried to Refresh my Windows 8.1 installation, but when running the refresh Windows 8.1 came up with an error I have not seen before, let alone do the refresh.
It displayed a message saying "The Drive is Locked, you will have to unlock the drive to continue" so HOW do you unlock a Hard Drive?
How to do this before I either pull my hair out, or start from scratch and re-format the drive and do a complete new install of Windows 8.1
One thing I have done about a week ago which may be causing this problem is I converted the Drive from MBR to GPT and if this has locked the drive.
View 1 Replies
View Related
Sep 19, 2013
I have just bought a 4TB external USB 3.0 hard drive. The plan is to copy all of the data from my current internal 2TB drive to the 4TB, then I'm going to crack the case of the external hard drive open, take the drive out, and put it in my PC to replace the 2TB drive that's in there now (which I know will void the warranty). This isn't going to be a boot drive as I have an SSD for that.
I had read that Windows does not support large drives of this size and that it would show up as 2 partitions, so I was prepared to convert the drive to GPT in order to have 1 large partition. However, I connected the drive up to my Windows 8.1 machine and it shows as 1 large partition of 3.63TB, which is about what I expected.
Does this mean I don't have to convert the drive after all? Can I do what I'm planning to do and everything will work fine? Or do I need to convert it to GPT before I copy all of my data over and if so, how do I do that exactly?
View 5 Replies
View Related
Feb 22, 2013
My pc got stuck on a black screen after i restart it one time. When it finally lets me log in after turning the computer on and off manually, all of my programs were deleted, i couldn't access my computer's hard drive(?)(c:windows) , and i couldn't access system restore (or msconfig / any of the advance system tools). Any other way to do a full system restore without any of the pre mentioned options?
View 3 Replies
View Related
Apr 2, 2013
I have recently purchased and new computer with Windows 8. It's running smoothly, however I am encountering one particular problem.
My primary boot device is a 128GB SSD and obviously I want that space for the operating system install and some essential programs (photoshop, fireworks etc.).
My secondary device is a standard 1TB HDD. This is what I want to be my storage space for files, documents and non-essential programs.
The problem - Whenever I try to install a program to my second drive it comes up with the following error
"Error Writing to D:lahblahlahlah.xml. Verify that you have access to that directory"
I have check my permissions in the security tab and made sure that all the right check boxes are clicked. I have made sure to run the program as administrator and I've check to make sure that the directory is not set to 'read only'.
View 3 Replies
View Related
Apr 12, 2013
I successfully managed to create a virtual hard drive on my external drive to try boot windows 8 off it. I managed to boot it up and the login screen also appears as normal. I have a successful login, But on the second time login I am faced with black screen and the cursor. I'm aware that Microsoft has released a fix for this. I have attached the executable in the zip. I tried running this fix but it didn't work . After the black screen appears, even in safe mode I cannot run explorer.exe or open any folder to try running any executable files
View 2 Replies
View Related
Mar 7, 2013
My 60 GB C: drive ran out of room. The only thing installed on it is Windows 8 and whatever pre-installed programs came with my computer. I ran WinDirStat (WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics), a directory statistic tool and found two very large folders: C:/Windows is 22.2 GB and C:/ProgramData/Microsoft is 17.2 GB. This doesn't seem right. Can I free up room in these or are they both necessary? I read that windows 8 should take up around 20 GB, not 40 so how might I got about freeing up some space?
Also, I updated from Windows 7 about two months ago.
View 9 Replies
View Related
Jun 25, 2013
Well, since i installed Windows 8 Pro on my desktop, it already ate 26,8GB of disk space. I have no extra apps installed (posting this from Internet Explorer 10). How can i free some of that space?
View 9 Replies
View Related
Apr 8, 2014
My Toshiba Satellite Laptop has Windows 8. For some reason windows 8 wont load. It gets to the screen where you select which username you want. But from there its non responsive, I cant get into Windows, I cant restart to load it up in safe mode.
I got a Windows 8 disk which I had to change the bios to load it up. The cd loads but it says the automatic repair wont repair the laptop. I try to refresh windows 8 but I get a message saying the drive where windows is installed is locked. unlock the drive and try again. It also wont let me use system restore.
I try to use the reset pc option but I get a message saying unable to reset your pc, a required drive partition is missing.
At the start it gives me the option to install windows 8, I don't know whether to just do that? Is it ok to do with windows 8 already installed?
View 1 Replies
View Related
Nov 28, 2012
I just bought a lenovo Z580 with windows 8 and I also have a new hard drive coming. The first thing I tried to do was create factory restore disks so that when the new hard drive gets here I can remove the old hard drive and replace it with the new one and put the pre-installed windows 8 that came with the laptop on it. I can't however find a way to create factory restore disks. Is this still possible and if not what are my options for replacing a hard drive for this laptop and using the same windows install that originally came with it? I would prefer to not have to clone the hard drive because the new hard drive is an SSD so I will want to install windows with AHCI mode on.
Ultimately, I want to do a clean install of windows 8 on the new laptop using the existing pre-installed windows 8 key. I imagine this would be pretty simple if I had windows 8 install discs but I don't have those either as they didn't come with the laptop. what my options are to make this work?
View 9 Replies
View Related
May 16, 2014
I am running Windows 8.1 and it appears that my hard drive needs to be replaced. When the machine is turned on, frequently there is a slight screech and I feel it's best to replace the hard drive.
How do I make an exact bootable copy of the hard drive on a new hard drive and simply replace the drive with the new drive without having to reinstall Windows 8.1 or other programs and without affecting any of the files currently on the machine? If cloning software is required, are there any free programs I can download?
View 7 Replies
View Related
Feb 7, 2013
I've created a "Powered on machine" virtual installation of my Windows 8 on VMware VCentre Convertor to run in VMware Player, the size of the Hard drive was about 130GB, in the virtual machine I've deleted all my media files and uninstalled the large programs. The size of the C: drive is now 40GB which is more manageable for a Virtual Install which will be used to tweaking experimentation before I do it to my real Windows 8 installation.
How do I shrink the Virtual Hard drive from 130GB to say 45GB, I have installed the VM Tools and reading on the VMware website it saying you go to the VM Tools in the ghost install by right clicking it in the system tray or going to control panel on the ghost install and click on shrink. I have the icon in the system tray but the only right click options are about and there is nothing in control panel.
I have tried the "compact" option in the virtual machine settings by right click my Windows 8 virtual machine from the VMware player but it doesn't shrink the volume, it wirred away for an hour but the hard drive stayed the same size.
IF has Win 8 Pro 64bit in Wmware Player could they look to see if the shrink option is there on the Virtual install of Win 8 by right clicking VM tools in the system tray and clicking settings or options.
View 9 Replies
View Related
