Reformatting Main Drive - Will I lose

I started getting blue screens a couple days ago and it's associated after I installed Portal 2 and something to do with my DVD player/recorder no longer being recognized.

So I paid way too much money for some programs online "guaranteed" to fix blue screen problems, and yeah they kinda went away, which lead me to find out they corrupted a few of my programs along the way, one of them being StarCraft II. So I went to reinstall SCII and that's when I found out my DVD drive completely disappeared.

When I used to click on "Computer" it would show about 10 drives most of them unassigned, including my C drive, D drive (optical), and E drive (SSD).

Now it just shows C, E and a back up drive through Norton. So I went online and did a huge amount of time wasting to get to the point of paying for a session with Microsoft where they take control of your computer ($49) and fix your problem. Three hours later, they threw up their hands and said, sorry it's hardware related.

So now I'm down to a couple of options.

1. If I get my computer to stop blue screening I could buy an external DVD recorder/player and install games from that. Problems not solved, just worked around.

2. I could wipe my C drive and reformat it and reinstall the programs I'd lose, which aren't that many since this is my gaming computer and just gaming stuff is stored on here. The question I have is, if I wipe my C drive for a fresh install, will I lose anything on my E drive (SSD) where WoW, Innerspace, Isboxer are all stored? I made a list of all the programs I'd need to reinstall, and was surprised it wasn't that many, so that's not a hassle, just the backup, clean install, and reinstall of the programs (so we're talking a few hours work probably).

What ideas do people have on this?

Thanks again in advance,

Malgor

No, if you format your C: partition, you will only wipe *that* partition.

Thanks, that was what I was hoping would happen.

did you check your device manager and storage manager to see if it were there but didnt have a volume label?

I like to unplug the drives that I don't want to format.
Just to be sure.

Before you do a format, a system restore might be an option.

My thoughts, they might be too big/annoying for you, but just my thoughts. DON"T reformat a hard drive to get an optical drive to be recognized. Really, don't.

If you need help on a step or subject, ask.
First easy check, go to device manager (right-click on "My Computer" and go to properties). Are there yellow exclamation marks next to devices? If there are, that is something to fix. In "DVD/CD drives" are there any drives listed there?

Next, but pretty much same idea, right-click on "My Computer" and choose manage. There should be a disk management section. In it should show all drives (not just drive letters). Does an optical drive show up there. It might not have a drive letter, so look closely.

So if both those places don't have anything that looks like your optical drive, then try a reboot. A lot of computers might put a pretty start up screen in your face when you start up. You want to see the drives that the computer recognizes. So if there is a way to make that screen go away, do it. Maybe ESC, maybe space bar, not sure. It should show the C hard drive (SATA 1 - Western Digital 120S320 - 320 GB) (SATA 2 - Kingston 40N80S - 80 GB) (IDE 0/1 - Optica 80DVDWR - DVD), etc. That would let you know if the computer itself, not the OS, but the computer sees the optical drive.

Next if you aren't scared you can go into bios and see if it is disabled somehow. Not much I can be specific here, since lots of bios things are different and different ways to disable an item.

Next if you are tough, you can open the case (with computer turned off and powered off, not just in sleep), and disconnect and reconnect the optical cables. It shouldn't happen, but if a wierd signal got in there, it shouldn't hurt to just disconnect and reconnect the cables. Yeah, as you go farther and farther down, the things are going to sound more stupid and shouldn't happen, but better to be sure, then have to reinstall. They aren't that hard to do.

And probably last, do you have a spare optical drive. It can just be a CD reader. It doesn't have to be fancy, just same type of connector as the drive you have now. If you connect the spare drive (data and power), does it show up? If so, reconnect your old drive and if it doesn't show up, then probably the drive itself.

Just some things that might help. Good luck.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ualaa

I like to unplug the drives that I don't want to format.
Just to be sure.

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People say to do this anyway when reinstalling so that the 100MB boot partition for the OS doesn't get put on a random
drive. I've only ever heard of that happening when drives weren't partitioned and assigned letters, though.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ElectronDF

My thoughts, they might be too big/annoying for you, but just my thoughts. DON"T reformat a hard drive to get an optical drive to be recognized. Really, don't.

If you need help on a step or subject, ask.
First easy check, go to device manager (right-click on "My Computer" and go to properties). Are there yellow exclamation marks next to devices? If there are, that is something to fix. In "DVD/CD drives" are there any drives listed there?

Next, but pretty much same idea, right-click on "My Computer" and choose manage. There should be a disk management section. In it should show all drives (not just drive letters). Does an optical drive show up there. It might not have a drive letter, so look closely.

So if both those places don't have anything that looks like your optical drive, then try a reboot. A lot of computers might put a pretty start up screen in your face when you start up. You want to see the drives that the computer recognizes. So if there is a way to make that screen go away, do it. Maybe ESC, maybe space bar, not sure. It should show the C hard drive (SATA 1 - Western Digital 120S320 - 320 GB) (SATA 2 - Kingston 40N80S - 80 GB) (IDE 0/1 - Optica 80DVDWR - DVD), etc. That would let you know if the computer itself, not the OS, but the computer sees the optical drive.

Next if you aren't scared you can go into bios and see if it is disabled somehow. Not much I can be specific here, since lots of bios things are different and different ways to disable an item.

Next if you are tough, you can open the case (with computer turned off and powered off, not just in sleep), and disconnect and reconnect the optical cables. It shouldn't happen, but if a wierd signal got in there, it shouldn't hurt to just disconnect and reconnect the cables. Yeah, as you go farther and farther down, the things are going to sound more stupid and shouldn't happen, but better to be sure, then have to reinstall. They aren't that hard to do.

And probably last, do you have a spare optical drive. It can just be a CD reader. It doesn't have to be fancy, just same type of connector as the drive you have now. If you connect the spare drive (data and power), does it show up? If so, reconnect your old drive and if it doesn't show up, then probably the drive itself.

Just some things that might help. Good luck.

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Most of these things sounds like they would have been covered by what Microsoft should have done in their $50, 3 hour
session minus the part where he would check the BIOS and swap drives. But, my guess is that the BIOS will still show the
drive because Windows sounds jacked up in one way or another. I could be totally wrong though, perhaps the PSU is
causing blue screens and it's on the fritz and won't power up the optical drives... who knows.

Either way, I'm a fan of fresh installs because everything always runs nice and smooth afterwards. If the optical drive can't
be found in the BIOS he'll find out soon enough when he pops in the Windows reinstall CD/DVD and it doesn't work.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Malgor

The question I have is, if I wipe my C drive for a fresh install, will I lose anything on my E drive (SSD) where WoW, Innerspace, Isboxer are all stored?

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WoW will not be affected. I cannot speak to Innerspace or IsBoxer. If they have registry dependencies they may cease to function. I assume their settings are stored in configuration files.

Oatboat - did you check your device manager and storage manager to see if it were there but didnt have a volume label?
Yes tried this, no luck, it's not even listed. There isn't even a section called DVD/CD-ROM drives as there should be in Win7.

Ualaa - I like to unplug the drives that I don't want to format.
Just to be sure. Will do.
Before you do a format, a system restore might be an option. Restored at least 5 times, no luck.


ElectronDF - My thoughts, they might be too big/annoying for you, but just my thoughts. DON"T reformat a hard drive to get an optical drive to be recognized. Really, don't.

If you need help on a step or subject, ask.
First easy check, go to device manager (right-click on "My Computer" and go to properties). Are there yellow exclamation marks next to devices? If there are, that is something to fix. In "DVD/CD drives" are there any drives listed there?
None are listed here. It doesn't even have DVD/CD-ROM drives as an option in the list.

Next, but pretty much same idea, right-click on "My Computer" and choose manage. There should be a disk management section. In it should show all drives (not just drive letters). Does an optical drive show up there. It might not have a drive letter, so look closely.
No, just the C and E drives.

So if both those places don't have anything that looks like your optical drive, then try a reboot. A lot of computers might put a pretty start up screen in your face when you start up. You want to see the drives that the computer recognizes. So if there is a way to make that screen go away, do it. Maybe ESC, maybe space bar, not sure. It should show the C hard drive (SATA 1 - Western Digital 120S320 - 320 GB) (SATA 2 - Kingston 40N80S - 80 GB) (IDE 0/1 - Optica 80DVDWR - DVD), etc. That would let you know if the computer itself, not the OS, but the computer sees the optical drive.
I haven't tried this, but will on next reboot.

Next if you aren't scared you can go into bios and see if it is disabled somehow. Not much I can be specific here, since lots of bios things are different and different ways to disable an item.
I'm not comfortable in the bios, though I can look around in it. I don't want to change anything.

Next if you are tough, you can open the case (with computer turned off and powered off, not just in sleep), and disconnect and reconnect the optical cables. It shouldn't happen, but if a wierd signal got in there, it shouldn't hurt to just disconnect and reconnect the cables. Yeah, as you go farther and farther down, the things are going to sound more stupid and shouldn't happen, but better to be sure, then have to reinstall. They aren't that hard to do.
I did this wrong, but tried it with it running. Probably a mistake, but I opened the case side and unplugged the power first and replugged it back in while the computer was running. I did the same with the IDE cable. Nothing happened.

And probably last, do you have a spare optical drive. It can just be a CD reader. It doesn't have to be fancy, just same type of connector as the drive you have now. If you connect the spare drive (data and power), does it show up? If so, reconnect your old drive and if it doesn't show up, then probably the drive itself.
I will try this.

Just some things that might help. Good luck.
Thanks!

Fenril - Most of these things sounds like they would have been covered by what Microsoft should have done in their $50, 3 hour session minus the part where he would check the BIOS and swap drives. But, my guess is that the BIOS will still show the drive because Windows sounds jacked up in one way or another. I could be totally wrong though, perhaps the PSU is
causing blue screens and it's on the fritz and won't power up the optical drives... who knows.
Yes they did do all this.

Either way, I'm a fan of fresh installs because everything always runs nice and smooth afterwards. If the optical drive can't
be found in the BIOS he'll find out soon enough when he pops in the Windows reinstall CD/DVD and it doesn't work.
I never thought about that. I can't install windows again if the DVD rom doesn't work. I bought an external DVD rom, but not sure if that would work on an install.

Thanks for the input everyone. This gives me a couple more things to try. I reran the cleaner program I have and haven't had any blue screens today, but then again I don't have a DVD rom drive showing up yet either.

I'll keep trying to figure it out.

Thanks for the posts!

Malgor

One of the other things I noticed is that in Win 7 there in the Device Manager there should be Portable Devices listed on the list. It's not there either. That was there prior to all this strange stuff happening. Does that tell me anything else?

Okay I'm in the bios and in one part - ASUSTeK EZ Flash 2 BIOS ROM Utility v3.37 it has three drives listed. C, D, E.

In my computer E has always been my SSD drive and D my DVD drive until this problem. In this utility it has C: as my main drive and when I load it I see all the programs it lists. It has D: as my SSD drive and when I load it it show WoW and InnerSpace. It has E: Optiarc DV which had nothing in it when I tried to load it due to nothing in the DVD drive. I put in a data disk and it shows it and loads it and you can see the files on the disk. When I click on "Drive Info" for this volume it says: Drave Name: Optiarc DVD RW AD-7200A (I assume that's my DVD drive brand and model).

So not sure what any of that means.

In Boot Device Priority it shows the Optiarc DVD as the #1 boot option, then my hard drive as the 2nd option.

I had a DVD drive show up as inaccessible and then disappear on me a while back on XP. It was due to a corrupted registry node.

See if you can even find this node in your registry and see if this helps. http://www.sony-europe.com/discussions/message/439352

Okay... well crap.

There was a reason I said up above I didn't want to go mucking around in the bios.

I didn't change anything that I know of and when I exited the bios I just hit enter, not thinking that the option of save changes and exit would do anything since I didn't make any changes (that I know of). Now it won't boot at all.

Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Reset defaults. Or can you not even get into BIOS anymore?

I can't even get into the bios anymore.
Nothing boots. I swapped out my DVD drive for another I have here and tried booting with the windows disc and that didn't work either.

wow, sounds like you may have entered the area where its time to turn it over to a pro onsite.

you need to start unplugging devices from the power supply. no sounds or bios comming up is a sign that POST hasn't occured. reasons why may be a bad load on a line of you Power supply. the bare mim you need to have plugged in is your video card external power connects, the main power plug for the mainboard, and the supplemental power cable for the mainboard.

if you are happy that your Power supply isn't the issue, take all of the ram minus one chip, that you reseatted from the board. that should get you to a bios screen at least

if you can get to the bios screen, look for an option, "Load defaults Options" or something simular, just like Uhg said

If you are not certain about doing all of this on your own, seek a trusted friend, or pro to do it for you, or at least assist you in getting this fixed.

I am reading that you can reset your bios by taking out the battery on the motherboard. However I can't locate one for my Asus.

I may have to take it in and let it spend a few days at the shop until they can either fix and/or reformat it. I will lose some pictures that I haven't backed up but the rest I can reinstall.


EDIT: I found the battery. It was located under my two video cards. It's quite big, and can't be missed. It's about the size and shape of a quarter. The site said to leave it out for 2-3 minutes and put it back in and plug everything back in you disconnected. I'll see if that works.

The ongoing Malgor computer saga is at least stalled for now.

Taking out the battery did reset the bios and I was able to load the default settings and get my computer at least functioning for now. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

Thanks again for everyone helping out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Malgor

The ongoing Malgor computer saga is at least stalled for now.

Taking out the battery did reset the bios and I was able to load the default settings and get my computer at least functioning for now. We shall see what tomorrow brings.

Thanks again for everyone helping out.

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You're on the path to becoming an expert at this young grasshopper...

You use the Braille method and just feel it out as you go... it's the way most of us learn how to do this stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fenril

You're on the path to becoming an expert at this young grasshopper...

You use the Braille method and just feel it out as you go... it's the way most of us learn how to do this stuff.

---

/agree

its nice to have someone around who tells you to keep on pushing a topic vs finding another solution / problem. but be warned, there aren't many people who can do a remote hardware troubleshoot without good background information that you provide, and even then, it may be a crap shoot.

GL

I finally had to throw in the towel this morning when after I uninstalled and reinstalled my virus protection, it blue screened about 10 times in a row and wouldn't reboot. After two hours of trying to get it to boot up it finally did. I backed everything up on an external HD and called the computer geeks to come haul it away. They have special diagnostic tools to hook it up to and see what hardware problems I'm having and see if they can resolve them as well as the blue screen of death.

I called around to try and get pricing and time frame from several of the local "fix it" places, and some of it was absurd. Like for example: Me: "How long will you take to fix it?" Them: "1 1/2 to 2 hours at 45 dollars an hour." Me: "Okay so I can drop it off today and pick it up tomorrow?" Them: "No we usually take 3 to 4 days to get it back to you." Me: "$#%)$".

Use arconicos truehome 11 to CLONE your hard drive every few weeks.

Dont use ANY anti virus.

(just don't click on email attachments go to sites that you don't know and when you get the message "blah blah wants to check your computer for blah blah" hit alt del shift and close expoler right away, don't click yes or no, just close out of ie explorer immediatly) and shut off all remote services. If you understand how crap gets on your computer in the first place then you don't have to worry about stupid norton hogging all yur cpu. And if you do get something then you have your clone from a week ago anyways.

If your computer goes down, take out the current hard drive and plug in the clone; less then 5 mintues if you have a TT Shark like I do.

Bingo back in business.

I'v been running computers for years and years and havn't lost one due to virus or malware etc. yet. but 20 people will say get norton and start talking about root kits and ...... Win 7 is very robust you can't really do much without getting around all that admin stuffs. If you see a web site with a stupid name of all numbers and letters then you just should not be there.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam DeathWalker

Use arconicos truehome 11 to CLONE your hard drive every few weeks.

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*cough*Acronis*cough*

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam DeathWalker

Dont use ANY anti virus.

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You can't recommend that -- MS Security Essentials is completely free of charge with Windows 7. When people need to
feed their dark side something like this can help keep almost anything out. If someone has designed a virus that they
want to get into your system they'll get it there, but for browsing the internet and doing normal random shit... you should
run one.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam DeathWalker

(just don't click on email attachments go to sites that you don't know and when you get the message "blah blah wants to check your computer for blah blah" hit alt del shift and close expoler right away, don't click yes or no, just close out of ie explorer immediatly) and shut off all remote services. If you understand how crap gets on your computer in the first place then you don't have to worry about stupid norton hogging all yur cpu. And if you do get something then you have your clone from a week ago anyways.

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Ah, the fine print. Seeing as he had to let a computer shop take care of it (no offense Malgor), I think it's safer to
recommend an AV program. MSSE didn't hog anything even while running my Q9550, it's a nice quiet program that
hangs out with you while you're online.

I will agree that other AV programs can be intrusive and demanding but in the past year(?) I've been using MSSE it's
been great to me and I've visited some pretty crazy websites.

Fenril is a freak.

Ya I supposed if you are inclinded to use one then use the MS one.

Still my recomendation is to use none but as stated everyone else will resonably advise the oppostite.

I really don't understand why Win 7 dosn't come will all remote services disabled as the default .......

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sam DeathWalker

Ya I supposed if you are inclinded to use one then use the MS one.

Still my recomendation is to use none but as stated everyone else will resonably advise the oppostite.

I really don't understand why Win 7 dosn't come will all remote services disabled as the default .......

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For the same reason no computers come with a firewall installed in whitelisted-apps-only mode: because the average joe doesn't know enough about computers to make educated decisions about which programs to allow, etc.

Also, it really doesn't much matter what AV suite you use as long as you use something. AS studies have shown, none of them are 100% perfect and most are well under 90% detection rates but almost all of them have at least basic detection for the top few hundred nasty, active and in-the-wild malware. It's like recommending people not go into a warzone with kevlar and a flak jacket because you really should know not to walk where bullets are flying. Really? /rolleyes

I'v been avoiding virus since the 8088 pc ....

DOn't forget I do suggest a back up clone drive in case you do get a virus. And by the way, I belive that cloneing is how a lot of large companies deal with the problem as well.

If you did know the path of every bullet on the battlefield then you don't need the jacket. Shuting down remote services just instantly kills a ton of virus as probably most of them rely upon remote services.

Except for all the javascript, flash, pdfreader, cross-site-scripting and other stuff that is prevalent today, which all happens as a result of a user-initiated action, not an open port. Also, if you got a drive-by virus from one of the ad-rotation injection attacks on a web browser you left open before you went to bed, it could be sitting there collecting documents/passwords/etc. and infecting other machines on your LAN all night long. By the time you clone your hard drive from the good image, the damage is mostly already done.

The on-going computer saga continues!

So, as we last left our hero, Malgor, I had taken my computer to a shop. The reason I picked this particular shop was two-fold. First they have Geeks and Nerds in their names, and how could you go wrong there? Second, they promised a 24 hour turn around where other shops only said 3-5 days.

The Good: My computer is home. It now recognizes the DVD/CD rom again.

The Bad: It still took exactly 57 hours to get it back from the shop. On top of that (since they delivered it) they forgot my windows install disk back at their shop.

The Ugly: They couldn't find anything wrong with it in their devices scans, all were working properly, or so their detector told them. They didn't discover anything in the 12+ hours of virus scans they ran on the machine (I told them they wouldn't since I use it just for gaming). They then wanted to run another 12 hours of registry tests, and that's where I drew the line and said, if you can get the DVD enabled in the bios, just reinstall windows and I'll reinstall my programs. They did that, but now we're talking 57 hours total away from my house.

So after I get it home I just plug in a few things so I don't stress it out too much when I'm reinstalling stuff: Monitor - 1 to start with, keyboard, mouse, and speakers. It does fine and installs all of those drivers. It then tells me I need to update windows, so I set it to doing that. When that's finished, and before I restarted I did as suggested and downloaded Microsoft Security Essentials. Then rebooted.

On the reboot as it's booting back up, BLUE SCREEN. So I'm back to square one, or actually square two since I do have my DVD drive working again. I assume though, that will disappear again if the blue screens persist. I am perfectly convinced now that the blue screens have everything to do with the Microsoft Update.

Time to start saving for a new computer I guess, since I'm all saga'd out.

Thanks again for everyone helping out.

It's nice to know that everyone here is willing to lend a hand when one of us is in trouble.

Malgor


Edit 1: Strange. After that initial blue screen on start up after installing the windows update, I haven't had one since. I've reinstalled most of my programs, done a couple more windows updates and nothing is wrong so far. I even worked on my all mage team for awhile getting the to L51.

Edit 2: 4 days later... Windows wants to do another update, I let it and guess what? Blue screens again. So many that I can only get the damn thing to load fully one in ten times. Then it blue screens while I'm trying to restore back to a few days back! POS!!!! Oh well. I may reinstall windows myself this time. I may pull the RAM as sam says below and see if that does anything.

9 times out of 10 its bad ram when you get errors that do not exactly repeat.