I have a curious problem. I have T30 running XP service pack 2. My D: drive is a logical drive, i.e., a partition on the hard disk.

I was scanning a multi-page document via Acrobat, using a WIA-HP ScanJet 5300C, USB scanner, when I was distracted and left the scanning half way through for some time. When I returned, the scanning dialogue had disappeared, with the pages already scanned showing in the Acrobat window. There was some message (presumably an error) showing on the screen, but I accidentally clicked off on it, before I read it. Anyway, I picked up with the scanning where I had left off, and the whole scan completed successfully.

However, when I went to save the file, which had been created, to the D: drive, there was no D: drive listed in the 'save' dialogue. I then tried to open a different file, but again, there was no D: drive in the 'open' dialogue.

I subsequently went to My Computer, and there, where the D: drive should have been in the window, was the scanner, and indeed, clicking on it, took me to the scanner interface. There was also an E: drive missing, which had always previously shown, but that drive is for another OS on the dual boot system.

Both D: and E: drives show up as healthy under Computer Management. From a command prompt, I can get up a DIR of D: and all sub-directories. D: is basically data, but also some programs. I can execute a program on D: from the command line, and I can load and save documents by entering the full path in the appropriate dialogue. I can't search from the graphical interface, because it does not show D:

Using RegEdit, I have restored the registry values to a point just before this happened, but to no avail.

Can someone please tell me how to fix this.

Thanks in advance-

Can you see the D: drive in the GUI if you go to Start -> Run and type ...

explorer D:\

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

From my little experience , if data is important ,Reverse clone disk to cover up D & E drives , you may be able to exploere drives as it is at least you can recover data or repair MBR.

Yes, that brings up a GUI with the content of the drive. Yet, if I just go to My Computer, it doesn't show the drive as existing at all. Similarly, no 'save as' or 'open' dialogue shows the drive at all.

This is not the problem. As I wrote in the beginning, the data is there, and can be accessed from the command line.

Perhaps the D: and E: drives are hidden.

You can use Microsoft's TweakUI PowerToy to hide and unhide your drives:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/down ... rtoys.mspx

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Have already tried that. It doesn't help.

How about http://www.intowindows.com/hide-hard-disk-drives-using-windows-registry/

I can confirm that TweakUI modifies the same registry key.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

If you type ...

D:\

... in the "Save" or "Open" File Name box, does your D: drive then appear?

BTW, have you considered reposting your question to a Microsoft Windows XP newsgroup?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Check in your system if in the Group Policy Editor, Hide drive is enabled
I did not check if that tweak modifies the same registry key mentioned. But I will add this to the mix:

Run gpedit.msc

Go to:

- User Configuration
- Administrative Templates
- Windows Components
- Windows Explorer
- Hide these specified drives in My Computer

Good luck!

Brilliant! Thank you so much. All the items under windows explorer showed 'Not configured', but anyway I set the 'hide the drives' item to 'disabled' and all my drive icons are back again.

Once again, many thanks!

Good to know it helped!

Regards.

mdarwish,
Thanks for your solution, when my drive recognition disappeared - you will recall that in the 'My Computer' the scanner appeared where the drive icon should have been - bit I have only now just realised that my scanner has disappeared from the system. The computer doesn't recognise any scanner being there. Do you have any ideas on this one?

Thanks in advance

Hi,

You may have driver conflict. I suggest you uninstall your scanner, update your system to SP3, as I see from your first post that you have SP2, and get the latest driver for your scanner.

I know that this may sound crazy, but remove the battery from your
computer for 5 minutes, then reinstall it. Then check your scanner.
If that doesn't work, then it will most probably be a driver.

That's the main battery, not the cmos battery.