Reformatting Main Drive - Will I lose

[Malgor]

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

[Svpernova09]

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

[Malgor]

Thanks, that was what I was hoping would happen.

[Oatboat]

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

[Ualaa]

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.

[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.

[MiRai]

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

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.

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.

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.

[d0z3rr]

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?

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.

[Malgor]

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

[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?