Acer Aspire laptop. Host OS : Win 7 Home Premium SP1. Guest OS : Win 8.1 pro preview installed in VMware Player
Win 8.1 does not see my external hard drive or flash drive when I plug them into the USB ports.
How do I correct that?
I've tried everything. Basically it wont boot when using a USB 3.0 flash drive (which is faster than the external usb 3 hard drive am using) It simply stalls on the boot image part (The blue windows icon). And on my laptop it gives a blue screen type error. Yet wont let me boot into safe mode when using flash drive. However when I use external drive it works fine although the performance isn't great.
At first I though it could have been an issue with the boot/350mb partition so I copied that over. Still the same. I have also tried a fresh windows to go install with same results.
USB Stick: Patriot USB 3 45MB Write/160MB Read
USB HDD: External Case (USB3) With Toshiba 7200 Laptop Drive (ASMT 2105)
How to resolve this?
I like to keep a whole bunch of USB Flash Drives around for bootable Windows media, recovery, etc. I have a bunch of Patriot Xporter XTs and these were really fast and cheap drives. I can't seem to find them as cheap as I used to because they are discontinued.
All of the 2014 roundups compare USB 3 drives, but I haven't had much luck installing Windows from USB 3 drives even on USB 2 controllers.
On my windows 8.1 PC whenever I plug in any USB pen drive the thumbnail for the device is always an image of a Sandisk Cruzer Titanium as is the identity when I go to the safely remove hardware toolbar.
The Sandisk probably was the first pen drive I plugged into the machine when new but surely it should be picking up details of subsequent devices or at the very least showing generic details.
I'm running windows 8.1 x64. When I insert a usb flash drive into my PC, it takes maybe over 2 minutes before windows "finds" it and has it appear in windows explorer. I have the latest BIOS for my motherboard and I don't think there are any specific usb drivers to install.
View 2 Replies View RelatedSo I like to listen to espn podcasts. Yesterday I listened to one just fine. Today, its telling me "You do not have the correct Flash plugin installed. Get Flash Now" . I clicked on the link and it took me here Flash Player Issues | Windows 8
Basically, I am going in circles on that site. I don't get what is wrong.
It pops up on the video screen I want to watch in Fox News website -- I haven't noticed it popping up on other sites as yet. It will list the site asking for permission to store information on my computer. The link I have attached below gives instructions on how to remove this pop-up. Is this flash player thing safe or is it some kind of virus or malware? The attached link refers to it as spyware. If I were to remove the Flash player program, will it affect playing games or whatever on my laptop.
View 7 Replies View RelatedI'm using Windows 8.1 Pro 64 Bit. If I go to Control Panel/Windows Update/View Update History KB2919442 is shown as installed successfully on the 12 March 2014 "BUT" if I go to Control Panel/Windows Update/Installed Updates there is no KB2919442 listed.
If I download KB2919442 directly from Microsoft and try to install it manually it says "This update is not applicable to your computer"
I'm obviously having no success trying to install KB2919355 as it never shows as available in Windows Update and if I download it manually from Microsoft and try installing manually I get the same error message "This update is not applicable to your computer"
My five year old HP Pavilion crashed with virtually no signs of life, although the 2 320GB drives are only 8 months old, and are spinning when startup is attempted. No messages of any kind on the display; I checked the display and it is good. Bought a new HP, but it has Windows 8.
All my backup data is via Norton Ghost 15/Windows 7 and is intact on a 1 TB external Passport drive. I need to figure out how to retrieve this data.
A suggestion was made to just install the old Win 7 hard drive in place of the Win 8 hard drive in the new computer. New computer can't accommodate both old Win 7 hard drives, so I stuck the C: in, it per normal containing the startup and OS files. The computer would not boot from this drive, and delivered an error message to the effect "No bootable disk or drive has failed."
So the question is would there be anything in the BIOS of the new PC which would make it expect to see Win 8?? why it wouldn't boot from this drive? I realize the drive could be bad, but given the age of the drive, it seems unlikely...
I had a Seagate MyBackup 1TB external drive. When it was half full I decided to buy another one, the same Seagate, same model, same 1TB.
So I copied the files to the new one and I do backups every week or so for the changes.
Today I noticed that the old one uses 70GB more than the other.
I mean, 70GB is a lot. I checked the files carefully, it's all my movies. Both are the same capacity, 931 GB. Even same color. The only difference I found is that the newest has 16MB buffer and the old one only 8MB.
Just in case it is relevant, I first used a program called Cobian Backup to make incremental backups and so on, but it was a mess and I uninstalled, formatted the new one and copied the files directly.Maybe Cobian took 70GB of drive #1 and they are now lost in nowhere? I don't detect hidden files, hidden partitions, etc.
In CMD I did I found 4 Diskdrives, and I'm only aware I have 'C' and 'D' on my computer, is this possible malware?
Screenshot by Lightshot
I have Windows 7 on a 120 Gig SSD.
I have Windows 8 on a 150 Gig HDD.
I want to swap the OS's, putting 8 on the SSD, and 7 on the HDD.
So far, I've made Ghost images of both drives, and the system reserved partitions.
I have a boot-able thumbdrive, and multiple ways to make the ghost images available [External HD, Server, large Thumbdrives] so restoring them will not be an issue.
The largest OS uese 89 Gigs, so that is not an issue, and I will redo several installs of software, but that's not important right now.
Are there ANY concerns with doing such a swap?
I'd rather not, but I can change the connections of the SATA cables if I HAD to! The BIOS is pretty advanced, so I don't expect that to be an issue.
I keep reading different interpretations on whether Windows 8 does a trim command or defrag using the new "optimization" utility (formally defrag).
View 1 Replies View RelatedI have a pc with 4 drives. And I got a new job, working from home and i wanted to make one of the drives just for work. It was one that i had windows 7 one and no longer used after i bought an ssd an put windows 8 on it. I am really liking 8 and so I put 8 on the second drive that had windows 7 on it.
It all worked fine, but when i tried to have two windows 8 drives on the same pc it made the drives unbootable. I had to re install windows on both drives again. I did some reading and i think its the fast boot feature of windows 8 that's causing the issue. I disabled fast boot on both hard drives. And before I plug them both in at the same time. I want to make sure that im not going to loos all my data again.
Consider this screenshot from first page:
I just want to know, is it possible to seperate the DVD-ROM drives into seperate categories like they were in Windows 8 and all other previous versions.
In 8.1, now the DVD-ROM drives appear mixed under the "Devices and Drives" depending on drive letter. I even have an iPhone Browser and Nokia Phone Browser appearing here, both of which have no drive letters. They aren't even drives.
I would like to take these icons out of the Hard Drives into an "Other" category like they were in Windows 7 and 8.
I have a lot of drives and was so used to the position each drive appeared.
Just installed 8.1 on one of my machines. The 100 mb "system reserved" boot partition is showing up as drive E in the drives. It does not show on my other Win 8 machine. Why would this be? Is there some way to hide it?
View 9 Replies View RelatedJust bought a HDD on amazon and I was wondering if it comes with an SATA cable. It didnt say it did, nor did it say it didnt include one. If not, where could I buy one?
View 4 Replies View RelatedASUS X55C notebook I had windows 8.1 installed and my comp stop reading blue rays, so I called tech support. they told me to mail it in. they change my HDD cause a bad sector and installed normal windows 8 but changed my dvd/cd rom drive to matshita dvd ram. I use to have matshita dvd ram UJ8A0AS and it did play blue rays. now i'm calling back and they are trying to tell me that my model doesn't play BR's. that's the reason why I bought my computer. their call center verified all that. so can I add that driver to my device manager.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI purchased an Acer laptop from EBay. It was listed as a refurbished unit. However it looks like it was a complete system wipe and OS replacement. There are no Acer hardware drivers installed and no Acer applications available. My real problem is that the computer has been set up with two hard drives visible in "Computer" a (C drive and "New Volume (D. I believe that when this computer was "refurbished" the installer improperly assigned the drives. In disk management the drives are labeled Disk 0: System reserved 350 MB and New Volume (D 297.75 GB. Disk 1: (C 18.64GB. The C: drive is completely full, with the OS however, it is also the default drive meaning that everything tries to install to that drive, but can't. I want to move the (C drive to the New Volume (D drive or merge the two drives together. Is there a way to perform this task so that the computer will boot up into Windows 8.
View 9 Replies View RelatedAfter seeing a couple files permanently delete at unseasonable moments, I now at least enabled deletion confirmation messages. The bug is with the HDD I use for storage, the SSD hosting the OS works according to the recycle bin settings. I tried the classic subterfuge of switching these settings back and forth for both drives, without success though. This is a new installation of 8.1 Pro for me and I think making deletion without confirmation the default behavior was bad move.
View 9 Replies View RelatedComputer: Dell Inspiron 530
Operating System: Windows Vista home prem. upgraded to Windows 8 home Pro. 32 bit.
BIOS Rev. 1.0.15
Hard drives: (# 1) Samsung 500 Gig with 2 partitions. (# 2) WD 500 Gig with 2 partitions. Clone of #1
Ram: 3 Gig
Problem: On start up with either drive, the system goes to a blue screen with a clock (different time zone) on pushing Ctrl + Alt + Delete a log in prompt comes on. After logging in a window with the circling dots and Preparing Windows comes on That stays on for about 4 minutes and then a black screen comes on. Pushing the power button will cause Shutting Down to appear breifly and then the machine shuts down. I have a backup of Drive #1 on an external drive.
What is the right way to clean them up or remove the bins altogether?
View 2 Replies View RelatedIs it possible to have two hard drives in the computer and to be able to choose which one to start with ?
I have in mind that one hard drive has all my normal programs and the other is used for Flight simulation program.
Both hard drives would have win 8 installed. If I could use one hard drive and partition it so the flight sim is on a separate partition. However, for two reasons I wouldn't want this as the flight sim with scenery requires a lot of Gigs. and secondly I believe that it would run faster on its own hard drive.
So. Is it possible to set up the computer to decide which Drive I wish to start ? and if so, how to set it up ?
I'm currently testing Windows 8 To Go in a enterprise environment. I have some of the officially certified 64GB Kingston Workspace drives, Kingston DataTraveler Workspace 64 GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive - 1 Pack - Newegg.com, and they work fine but at $129 per USB they are too expensive to purchase that many right now (And these are the cheapest official option currently). I am now looking to find some other cheaper models of 64GB USB 3.0 drives that have their RMB set to Fixed (so they appear to Windows at a Fixed disk instead of a removable disk).
I've contacted a few USB manufactures and they have been less than useful at even understanding what the RMB setting is, and then on which of their own drives they may have switched it to fixed on. Sandisk actually switched all their USB drives over to appear as Fixed drives last year, and then they switched them all back to appear are removable again, so if you order a SanDisk USB drive in the past few months, it's a bit of a crap shoot in terms of what you get. I tried to order a few different ones but have not yet found a 64GB USB 3.0 USB drive that appears as fixed, except for the expensive WTG certified USB Drives.
Any other regular 64GB USB 3.0 USB drive's that are configured to be fixed drives in Windows?
I have a Toshiba Satellite P855. it has an i5 processor, 8 gig of RAM, 64 bit os. running windows 8. 3 USB ports. Im not sure if they are all usb2. MY problem is that i can't connect any of my external hard drives to my laptop. When I plug them in to my desktop running windows xp, and my other laptop running windows 7, everything is fine, but my laptop running windows 8 doesn't even recognize that anything is plugged in to my usb ports. I have a lot of files, pictures music, and video files that i would like to have easy access to on my new laptop.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI have a system that froze and I have been struggling with for days. Long story short, Lenovo Twist with solid state hard drive and no optical disc drive. I woke up last week and had a black screen. So I rebooted and went through the steps to recover (not 12 after a couple of days of free time I had to force the recovery with f10 and then I could only get the reset windows option to come up wanting me to insert my recovery media.
I don't have any. Windows 8 was preinstalled so I don't have the key. Yes it was visible on the system but that's not an option now and without a optical disc I couldn't burn a recovery disc.
After arguing with Lenovo, Staples, and Microsoft about warranties etc. I want to just get my system running. I want to buy windows 8 and install from a stick or external optical drive right? I cannot just download to the stick and insert into a usb slot. I cannot restore from a factory (Microsoft) CD if I bought the external drive.
Have two Windows 8 machines and one has a bunch of drives connected to it, that I use informally as a file server. Generally, what happens is the following:
1) Boot the Windows 8 "server" machine (Windows 8 pro, not a Server OS)
2) Boot my Windows 8 Pro desktop
3) Open file manager app, double-click the icon for the server PC -- and drive icons open
But sometimes, when I do 3), I get an error message saying that the machine name is incorrect (which it is NOT).
When I click Details on this to see what is wrong, it says "no issues" -- but still can't connect.
This is generally resolved by rebooting the "server" box (and trying again), or rebooting the desktop box (and trying again), or going through repeated reboots of each -- until a connection is finally made.
I've checked the sharing permissions on the "server" box and they are set as follows:
1) Each partition -- read by everyone (used by the desktops to download files)
2) Shared folder in each partition -- full control by everyone (used by the desktops to upload files)
And ... password-protected sharing is enabled, such that when a desktop first tries to connect, you must enter valid account info. After that, the info is saved and you don't have to enter it again.
I've gone through removing sharing and reapplying it several times, and there are no changes as a result. And it's always all-or-nothing, that is, it's never a situation where some of the shares can be seen/used but not others.
Problem is, there are times when I really need access to the "server" drives from the desktop and can't reboot either because something is going on that takes a long time and I don't want to have to restart it. I also run XP on this box (which never gave me these problems) -- and would really like NOT to go back to using XP.
I have a RAID 0 array consisting of 4x WD Black. Windows lists the array as an SSD in the optimize/defragmenter UI. Both 'Analyze' and 'Optimize' are greyed out and therefore I cannot defragment the array.
For the record I have the latest BIOS for my motherboard (which is an Asus Rampage IV Extreme), latest Intel RST and Windows 8.1 fully updated.
I am shortly replacing 3x 2Tb hard drives with a Western Digital Black 4Tb in a major reorganisation of my system. Currently my drives are not partitioned and folders have become badly organized as I was led to believe that partitioning wasn't a good idea nowadays. A few folders are mapped to drive letters and I have a 3Tb NAS drive on my router for backup.
My question is whether to partition the new 4Tb drive or to create a folder structure and map some to drive letters?
I have a Win 8.1 setup with 16Gb RAM, an SSD boot drive and SATA6 and am a photographer so have very large files to move around at times.
I've been trying to install windows 8 , but it says "No drives Found " . I tried to find out some solution from net , and tried the method of using cmd ( diskpart , listdisk ) but only one drive of cdrom is shown using cmd.
How to solve it , other than cmd , as it is showing one drive that is of cd-rom . I'm using hp probook 4540s . . .
I read the tutorial on removing the Windows password requirement. I changed the settings per the example, everything seemed ok, I restarted and it logged me in as expected, but then it took me to the desktop and opened up all of my external hard drives. I then changed the setting back to requiring a password and still the same result. I have restarted several times and still the same condition.
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