Personal Laptop - Hard Drive issue

[chrisredfield93]

this is really puzzled me I have a laptop with Vista Home Premium SP2.

 

Bios Detects Hard Drive - No Problem

 

Windows Boots - No Problem

 

"My Computer" Sees the two partations - No Problem

 

"Device Manager & Disk Management" - Can't see the hard drive and the partations (they both can see the CD Drive)

 

Any solutions other than a factory restore?

[SYNACK]

Back it up then sysprep /generalize it, this should keep all existing programs etc on it but wipe the device configurations and rescan them when it next reboots. I think it may keep useraccounts too but I am not 100% on that. This is probably the easiest way to do a complete refresh of the hardware configuration without the hassel of a reinstall.

[mac_shinobi]

not 100% sure on vista but can't you use the dvd to boot into the recovery console and do a chkdsk /r and see if that helps at all ?

[Dos_Box]

You could try changing the drive letter then changing it back again, but this generally has the effect of causing Windows to go 'Aaarrrrgggghhhhhh I can't see myself, I don't know where I live, so I'm just going to die now'. Which is bad. I'd go for Synacks solution.

[mac_shinobi]

Unless you could use clone zilla to back it up and from there do a full format and then do a restore either using the clone zilla backup or do a factory restore ?

[pete]

You've checked that logical disk manager is running? (though that wouldn't explain the device manager issue).

 

Does it detect removable media - say a usb drive?

[chrisredfield93]

* Update - Viruses and mlaware/spyware been detected - now all removed with the help of the following software, anti-malware remover, spybot and mcaffe internet security 2010.

 

restarted computer and more keep coming in

 

Looks the floodgates are open, disabled network adpaters than all those clean again and flooding back in. so i think the only option i have got is a factory recovery disc.

 

Thanks all for trying

 

Unless you lot got other things in mind