SOLVED Windows 7 doesn't see my storage drive

[Alaric]

The problem is I need the data on that drive. I formatted my boot drive before I installed W7 on it, but there may well be some W10 pollution on the invisible drive.

 

[Mr.Scott]

You're not going to get that data back.
Drive will not read on W10 either. I'll bet on it.

 

[knoober]

You're not going to get that data back.
Drive will not read on W10 either. I'll bet on it.

I dont doubt that Win10 wont read it either, but I wouldnt throw in the towel just yet. Almost every time someone posts about recovering data, there is a suggestion to try from a live Linux environment. Linux is awesome like that... reads damn near any FS and size drive, etc. If you cant pick it up from a live ennvironment then I would call the data lost... to me anyway, perhaps the more tech saavy could get it though

 

[Alaric]

Windows 10 saw it fine when I installed W7. I unplugged it, installed W7, and plugged it back in. No other changes. It's worth trying a W10 install on another drive to find out.

 

[Mr.Scott]

I would try, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

 

[Alaric]

I'm a 54 year old smoker. I couldn't hold my breath if I wanted to.

 

[Vishera]

I guess this is one of those posts they show to people to remind them to run incremental back ups. I was going to buy two 480GB SSD's sometime this month and put them in RAID 0, then take a 2TB spinner from a friend and use the three drives for backup. Backup to the SSD RAID for speedy restoration should anything go wrong, and backup the data a second time to the spinner should the SSD's fail or in case the RAID fell apart. I even wanted to grab one those USB drives for sale in the classifieds, just because I'm crazy paranoid like that.

 

[Alaric]

Yeah, my invisible drive was my back up. All was fine, so I unplugged it, installed W7 and got it all updated, etc., and plugged it back in and nothing.

 

[Mr.Scott]

I'm a 54 year old smoker. I couldn't hold my breath if I wanted to.

I'm a 54 year old smoker also. I could hold my breath for a couple seconds if my life depended on it. I try not to put myself in that situation.

 

[Alaric]

We really should quit, you know.

My Adata 120 GB SSD should be here Friday. I figure 30 minutes or so to install the drive and OS and update it. Fingers (toes, and eyes) crossed.

 

[Vishera]

Yeah, my invisible drive was my back up. All was fine, so I unplugged it, installed W7 and got it all updated, etc., and plugged it back in and nothing.

Yeah that's why I double and sometimes triple backup. Lately I've used cloud storage but I'm wanting to get back into using physical mediums as well.

 

[habbajabba]

I backup c:\ to a folder on my 2tb, that drive to a folder on a 6tb, and that drive to another folder on another 6tb. All mirrors. I need 2 more 6tb drives for sure.

 

[Alaric]

Hmmmm....



Anything useful here, info-wise?

 

[LutaWicasa]

You should tick GPT and then click OK.
You said near the beginning of this thread that you'd set that drive up as GPT

 

[Alaric]

That was from installing the new SSD, which will get W10, so it was formatted as MBR. I was wondering about the statement that previous versions of Winders having a problem recognizing GPT. I originally went with GPT on the HDD because of the size issue mentioned in the window.

 

[Alaric]

You're not going to get that data back.
Drive will not read on W10 either. I'll bet on it.

*Sticks out tongue*
There it is, hale and hearty. Data seems to be intact, too. Now to save and transfer. Alaric, FTW.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Alaric, FTW.

Alaric's helpers FTW.

Good job. Honestly thought you were doomed. It's ok to be wrong once and a while.

 

[knoober]

Someone want to explain what made it work? Was it the OS or the formatting?

 

[Mr.Scott]

Someone want to explain what made it work? Was it the OS or the formatting?

Combination of both, plus the OS upgrade. I'd put most of the blame on W10.

 

[Alaric]

I think (Not often, but sometimes) that the disclaimer regarding the GPT partition not being recognized by "all previous versions of Winders" is likely the important part. Going forward, I'm going to say that if you create a GPT partitioned drive in Windows 10, a W7 install won't recognize it. My W7 is fully functional (fully updated and updater functional) and current, but Explorer can't access it. So, now I'll transfer the relevant parts to my W7 SSD, and temporarily store the rest on an external drive while I reformat the HDD. Some image files and time after I start, I should be at 100% on the new build. Only took me two months. Sheesh. For Halloween I'm going to dress as a Windows 10 DVD. Scariest thing I can think of.

edit: The girlfriend is dressing as a nun for Halloween. I'm dressing up as Bill Gates. How's that for irony?