ACCESS DENIED.....

[Buggyman]

Following my recent 'excitement' with RAM & Graphics I began to install all the aircraft from the back up HD which, in my case, is a removeable 'media' unit.

Anyways, following a very successful session on Sunday evening I decided to change HDs and save my goodwork to date - just in case.... So I turn off the PC and change over the HD and then turned the PC back on (this is the recommended way to to it according to HP). Initial start was ok but with the monitor still black (ie Vista had not fully loaded) the monitor displayed the message "L: orphaned file 000001 removed". Then it went into overdrive and rapidly showed the same message with the number of files rising at an alarming rate. The problem was I could not turn the PC off - keyboard and mouse were none functional and the PC on/off switch seemed to do nothing. So I let it continue thinking peprhaps it was a viruse being removed or just an in-house clean up. By the time I went to bed the file count was over 500000 and rising. Sometime overnight the PC exhausted itself and switched to sleep mode.

Now the next morning, with the HD removed, I did a complete re-start (ie; I turned off the PC at the switch and turned it back on again). Everything started up normally except the L: drive showed up blank even though the HD was still in place. When I highlighted the L: drive I got the message 'unable to open drive access denied'. I changed HDs over and the other HD worked fine but when I changed back to the 'defective HD' I got the same message. I have a feeling that the HD has been completely wiped and may need reformating, but how do I do that if I am denied access to it.

The failed HD is only a few weeks old so it is covered by guarantee but before I send it back is there any avenue I can explore to get the PC to recoognise the Drive and, more important, can I get to my back up files?

Any suggestions would be most welcome.


Allan

[tonymadge]

bit confused here... is it the portable hard drive which is at fault? or is it the fixed hard disc? if its the portable one try it on another PC if its the fixed one is it set to slave and not master? does it show in the bios and also does it show in the windows disc management ? if all this is teaching Granny to suck eggs I appologise, just sometimes from experience "you cant see the wood from the trees" ;-)

[nigelb]

The "L: orphaned file xxx removed" message is probably not a virus but indictes the file data is missing or corrupt in the file index. I am also a bit confused over which drive is which and also why the drive reference is "L" rather than the conventional "C". How many drives are in the computer in total? I suspect the all night activity removed everything from the drive as an "orphoned file"

The reaon I ask is perhaps the file index is looking for files on "C" not "L" or the files are marked as "L" and the index is looking on "C" I admit that is a WAG!

Tony's point about the Windows Disk Management console is key - if the drive does not show up there and is not in Device Manager, something is obviously wrong. Try the "Action - Rescan disks" for a start.

[Buggyman]

Only just got a chance to get the PC up and runnig - visitors today.

Sorry for the confusion the PC has 3 drives;

C: holds all the programme stuff for windows, Word 200 etc
D: is flight sim only
E: is a partition of C which holds the recovery programme only.
L: is the removeable HD and is a slide and plug in fit into a special slot in the front of the PC. I use this drivie as a back up unit and I have 2 HDs for it, one for general back up and one for pure flight sim. These HDs can also be used as stand-alone with their own power pack and usb cables.

It is the L: removeable HD that seems to have gone t1ts up. The second removeable HD works ok in the L: position. So, I am assuming, that this HD is faulty and will now have to be reformatted and then we start from scratch with back ups. Either that or have the unit replaced by the manufacture as a fauly untit with only a few weeks use.

The events leading up to the problem were just a normal evening of flying on FSX. Everything worked as advertise and it was only when I restarted to the PC with a view to doing a bit of back up housekeeping that the problem occured.

I hope that the above makes more sense - I had not made any changes either to flight sim or the PC as a whole - which is why I am so confused as to the cause of the problem.

Over to you guys................

[Buggyman]

Having posted the above I decided to have a play - after all the worst I could do was bugger up the PC.

I found that although I couldn't access the drive it could be formatted. So that's what I did and left it to its own devices overnight. This morning I did a defrag and everything is ticketyboo.

What I intend doing now is checking withHP to see if they have a HD check programme I can download or if there is any history of this happening in their FAQ tech site. At the mo the HD is acting quite normally and I am baffled (truth be told I'm always baffled so no change there). Do I trust the HD with back ups or what?

Anything worthwhile will be reported back for the info of others.



Allan

[nigelb]

Good on the sucessful formating! Thanks for the drive details, makes things a lot easier to understand.

So now "L" is recognized and hopefully shows in both Device manager and the Windows Disk Managemnt console. I would back up some data to "L" and see if it is behaving as you expect.

Your idea of getting a test program from HP is a great one and if HP does not have one there maybe other alternatives available. I would thoroughly test that drive especially as it is new and still under warantee - you want to find if it reliable and get it replaced if it isn't.

[tonymadge]

agreed with the above..makes sense

[Buggyman]

Still trying to get something out of HP - thought they would have a downloadable HD test programme but seems they don't or if they do they don't exactly make finding it easy.

One thing that has come to light is that in some cases virus checkers can become 'confused' especially when more than one removeable HD is used as in my case. In extremis if, say, I open up my day with removeable HD '1' installed and then later on decide to change HDs to No2. Then the viirus checker can be thrown into thinking that something is wrong and start to remove files that weren't there previously (because it is a different drive!). I think this may be what happened to me. However, only time will tell and I am now loading up the suspect HD with files in the hope that I can re-create the situation. For the record; I only rarely change HDs, normally starting my day and ending with the same one installed.

On the HD checking side, does anyone have an idea where I can get a freeware HD check program? I have googled and got a couple that look and sound free but once downloaded won't work until a registration fee is paid.

ATB


Allan

[nigelb]

Alan, here is one I just found on Google:

http://www.ariolic.com/disk-scanner.html

It only checks disk reads but is small in size (around 500kb). Note I have not tried it so the usual cautions apply.

N2

[Buggyman]

Thanks.

Downloaded and in progress for the last 8 hours! Fast it ain't but it is getting there and no sign of damaged blocks, segments or whatever so far.



Allan