Trouble reading drive

Technology and Gaming Help and Support
#1

When i put together my new PC, i had no trouble with booting; it was lightning fast with the new solid state drive i put in it. Because of work, i haven’t been able to finish adding all my old hardware until today. Unfortunately, it’s having trouble reading one of my older drives. i can’t seem to find any solutions online either so any help you guys can provide would be appreciated.

When i first assembled the machine, i only put in ONE of my older drives. The solid state went in first, acting as my “OS” drive. My “MEDiA” drive was installed first. The computer still booted at lightning speed. Until today i haven’t needed to access it, but i earlier i threw in my “ART” drive that keeps all my artwork, game files, finances and other misc. files. Once i threw it in, the computer takes a significantly longer time to boot. When Windows finally booted, it wouldn’t show as a usable disk. For some reason it wouldn’t mount on its own to a usable drive letter. While all of my drives are “basic”, my “ART” drive showed as “dynamic”. i had to “reactivate” the disk to access it.

…but my computer now takes -literally- about 50 times longer to boot.

So long as the “ART” drive is plugged in, my PC sits on post, just before drive scan for about three whole minutes before finally displaying drive list and starting up Windows. Windows7 itself takes no time at all. i have YET to see the splash logo finish the animation. But if i simply remove the “ART” drive, post takes less time and i can start using the computer within 10 seconds. it takes half that long for the ViewSonic warm up screen on my monitor!

Also, it seems like accessing either of my two SATAs takes longer now. if i ever want to access either “MEDiA” or “ART” within the first few minutes of turning on, Windows Explorer locks up for about 8 seconds if i try to read something on either drive before responding. Often times Explorer crashes, but once everything is “warmed up”, it’s smooth sailing. i never had that problem when i only used the “OS” and “MEDiA” drives. in fact, if i yank the plug on “ART”, all my problems disappear like magic.

in short :

OS drive = Corsair 120GB solid state (SATA3) basic NTFS
MEDiA drive = Seagate 1.5Tb platter (SATA2) basic NTFS
ART drive = Seagate 500Gb platter (SATA2) dynamic NTFS
No compression on any drive, no separate partitions either.

This is my motherboard
i’m running Windows7 64

i’ve swapped channels, cables, added, removed other drives, etc. The only common denominator is that “ART” is plugged in somewhere and then everything takes longer to boot and BOTH of my platter drives have trouble reading for the first time after boot. i can still easily access all my files on “ART” and write new files with no issues. Everything seems to run just fine past the initial boot and warm-up phase but it’s disappointing and unsettling that it takes SO LONG for my computer to read it. LOL

-Kawai Tei-

#2

Your Art disk being dynamic is the problem. A basic drive has only one type of volume while a dynamic disk may have many kinds of volume. For example a dynamic drive can have a simple volume, spanned volume, stripped volume, mirrored volume, or a Raid-5 volume. As well it could have any combination of Fat-16, Fat-32 or NTFS partitions or volumes. Dynamic disks works best with the Win 2000 OS, and was implemented so an operator could work with different volumes without needing to reboot when changes in the volumes were made. However dynamic disks do not work well with any other OS (except UNIX) and often causes problems when using older drives with a newer OS (as you have noticed). Normally there isn’t a way to change a dynamic drive to a basic without data loss. I did find this link that may give you a way out, however it does involve some HEX editing. You can give it a shot if you want.

https://blog.remyservices.net/2010/03/24/how-to-convert-dynamic-disks-back-to-basic-disk-without-losing-data/

#3

i’ve read that certain dynamic drive configurations can screw with Win7, but the first issue i’m having is PRE-boot. Can dynamic drives screw with hardware too? in fact, i just noticed that the drive scan doesn’t even SEE the “ART” drive. it isn’t until Windows comes up that my machine mounts it to a drive letter.

My bios drive scan identifies my DVD-Rom, E-SATA slot, Corsair solid state and my “MEDiA” Seagate drive…no info on the problem “ART” drive.

But before i start backing everything up, what would be the best method to format the drive into a basic format once i make the move? i’ve had trouble trying to format inside Windows’ environments. Would a simple “right-click and format” do me fine or is there a safer way to format this bitch into something my PC can read without issues? i want to make sure it’s worth the time of backing everything up. The only two external drives i have to use are FAT32 and i have lots of large files i would have to crunch to back everything up. iSOs over 4Gb and the like.

-Kawai Tei-

#4

It’s very possible that the hardware doesn’t recognize it as a valid drive and so “ignores” it, until Windows comes up and mounts it (although slowly) to a drive letter.

As for formating it back into a basic drive, I would suggest using the Disk Management tool. It can be found here - Control Panel - System and Security - Administative Tools - Create and Format hard disk partitions.

You can format, make or adjust partitions and all that. I only have NTFS format on my computer, but if you want FAT32 it can do that too.

#5

just press win+R and type diskmgmt.msc, or compmgmt.msc

#6

i’m familiar with Disk Management. That’s how i mounted the sucker in the first place.
But is there a more reliable way to format? Anything OTHER than using Windows’ wizards and tools. i’m not against using it, i’m just wondering if there’s a smarter alternative. i’ve had trouble with drive failure and botched partitioning when using Windows’ tools before.

…but this was years ago; mostly with WinNT and 2K. i’ve had problems with formatting a 20Gb drive down to a whopping FiVE and literally blocking off 75% of the disk due to a botched format. i like to avoid these problems. i’m new to Win7 and if there’s any untold risks, i’d like to know ahead of time.

-Kawai Tei-

#7

on windows 7 the risk is about 0, it is way easier to fuck something up with Gparted or Qtparted on Linux.

#8

with diskpart you can also lose stuff very easily

#9

I also have Win7 64 and have been using the Disk Management tool for about two years now and haven’t encountered any problems so far.

#10

Tei, did you check if the harddisk is working on other pcs? If the harddisk is broken, the system can’t initialize it during POST and the whole system holds until the initialization check times out.

#11

Was the drive in question a dynamic drive before?

There’s really no benefit to a single drive being a dynamic disk. The Benefit comes from multiple physicals disks (i.e. a JBOD), and I suspect that is your core issue. The problem appears, to me at least, that this disk was dynamic prior to putting it into the new system. That is why you had to activate it in the OS after booting up.

My suggestion would be, if you have the space, to copy all the data off your art drive and then change it back to a basic disk. MAKE SURE YOU COPY OFF THE DATA FIRST. Changing it back will kill any data on it. Create your new volume, format then copy your art data back.

P.S. Windows native Disk Management is pretty reliable. Also, I would make sure the Art drive is plugged into the SATA2 port on your MB and not a SATA3 port.

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