Windows 7 Slave Drives Not Detected After Install

VlyCal

New Member
Joined
Nov 28, 2009
I formatted my HD in the spring for Windows 7 Beta (No Issues). Three months ago, I formatted again and installed 7RC (again, no issues).

Today however, the following happened:


After the computer rebooted to finish the installation, it rebooted once more (as normal to get into Windows) and then for a brief moment on the screen gave me an option to dual boot from Windows 7 or Windows 7. I had no time to react to stop the countdown, and it chose the top one.

I am guessing the above is what's causing the computer not to see my slave drives and DVD-Rom Drive. I have no idea why it would show a dual boot since I formatted the HD for Windows, and I have never Dual booted on the computer ever.

I went into the BIOS, and it only shows the Master Drive.

I went into Drive Management, and only Drives C:\ and Y:\ (same HDD, just partitioned) are the only ones being seen. I hit "Refresh", but no luck.


I shutdown my computer and checked to make sure the cords were in tight (which shouldn't matter since EVERYTHING was being seen on Windows 7 Beta and RC), but still nothing.


I looked for ways online on how to access the dual boot screen, but it will not show again.
 
I don't think you did a "clean" install.

It should have formatted the drive

Try changing the hard drive boot sequence

Did you dual-boot previously?

Go to Start ,. Run, and type msconfig,. click the Boot tab and remove the entry the isn't current (Default OS)
 
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I don't think you did a "clean" install.

I did the same steps I've done in the past with XP/7Beta/7RC with no issues.


It should have formatted the drive

From what was showing on the screen, it did. It showed "HD Space - 60.00GB" "Free - 59.90GB"


Try changing the hard drive boot sequence

In the BIOS? DVD-ROM has always been first, but now as stated won't show, so it shows "Disabled > Hard Drive > Disabled..."


Did you dual-boot previously?

As stated in my Topic Post, I have NEVER dual-booted before on this computer. In fact, I never have on ANY computer I owned (never needed to for my purposes), which is why as you said non-clean install is probably what happened, to make it look like two OSs were on here.


Go to Start ,. Run, and type msconfig,. click the Boot tab and remove the entry the isn't current (Default OS)

Default OS is the ONLY thing showing in there.

Windows 7 (C:\Windows) ; Current OS ; Default OS


Is there a way to install Windows (or at least get back into the boot up sequence to format again) other than a DVD? Also I updated the Service Packs on here (and any other Critical Files) in case that solved it, but to no avail.
 
Could you post a sceen shot of Disk Management?

Check and see if there is a boot,.ini file in the root directory
 
Here's the picture for the Disk Management when I said Drive Management, I meant Disk Management in the Topic post, heh).



DiskManagement.png





I looked in the root directory and didn't see any "Boot.ini"

Albeit as far as I know, there shouldn't be any from what I read on Vista and 7. I read a few articles in the past saying that boot.ini doesn't exist in Vista/7.

I also read something about Easy BCD, and so I downloaded the program, and this is what it's telling me:

There is one entry in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows 7
Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
 
How many drives do you really have and what type are they? Could you have unplugged something?

Do you know what is taking up 300GB of your 405 GB partition? Something is really strange if C: comes after Y:, and I could only guess the partitions got messed up during the install.

The boot menu you were referring to may have been one that said Windows 7 or Windows 7 install. I think I have seen something like that before.
 
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Right-click on the Computer icon on the desktop,. choose properties,. click the Advanced System settings,. now click the setting button under Startup and recovery.

What listed as the default operating system. Is there a choice?
 
I did the Partitioning during Windows 7 RC, AFTER windows was installed. For some reason during the installation the option to Partition was greyed out. So after I created the Partition, I just went back and formatted both during another installation of Windows. The reason why it shows "Y" before "C" is because when I partitioned it, "C" got placed second. Could that cause an issue?




As for the Right click on Computer... It showed two Windows 7, so I just selected the other one, and it showed everything again. However, I didn't want to take chances, so I rebooted and did any repairs via the DVD Drive. I am back now typing this with only one OS showing in the Startup and Recovery.


So as of now, I think I am safe, but not sure.
 
Post another picture of your Disk Management now.
 
That must be why drive Y is showing up as an Active partition..

To truly fix thus problem,.you'll need to delete both partitions and start over,.''You can transfer all important fukes to a flash drive or an external USB drive.
 
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DiskManagement2.png



It's only showing one slave now, but that's because the other IDE plug is in the DVD-Rom drive, which is also working fine now.
 
After backing up my files, I went back formatted the HDD so it was as a whole (no partitions). I then went and popped in Windows 7, and started the installation, which is where it asked me to partition the HDD, which I did. I finished the installation and updated the SPs (along with Anti-Virus and programs I use), and so far have no issues.

Thanks for your help :)
 
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