Windows 10: Cannot add a Drive to Indexing Options

One more thing you could do @dortmunder. Shrink that D: partition and make new one in empty space. See if new drive would appear in Indexing options. If not, partition table is corrupted. If it appears, move data to new drive and delete old one.

Not elegant solution, but it could work. Making backup and restoring is actually the same, but you get backup of files...

 

That seems like a fairly safe action - you're quite sure the deleted file will be rebuilt with no harm done? Apologies if I sound paranoid and thanks for taking the time to seek answers for me.

 

No apologies needed. I'm not sure about it, but should be safe.

Was thinking about it some more and another solution seem possible. Permissions could be the culprit. Could be that indexing service doesn't have permission on file system or in registry.

For file system you can check the permissions and compare them to E: drive. for registry go to "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search" and check that WSearch user has read and write permissions.

 

I tried to delete E:\System Volume Information\IndexerVolumeGuid but the Command Prompt couldn't find it. Turns out that the System Volume Information folder in both my storage drives is empty. And yet one is indexable and the other not – weird.

Then I looked into 'WSearch user' – it does indeed have the 'Allow' box ticked for both 'Full Control' and 'Read'.

It's all most infuriating but never mind. I don't want to split the HDD into 2 drives just yet, I'll see how I fare with just the basic search function. But if anyone can eventually explain why a 4TB GPT drive isn't available for selection in Indexing Options I'll be glad to hear from you.

Meantime, thanks for all the advice, especially AndreTen.