Windows 10: Hard drive with question mark

[NOTICE: I posted this twice, once with the "Files, folders, and storage" topic and once again with "Devices and drivers" topic]I found an old hard drive of mine and was wanting to get some old video footage off it. When I plugged it into my pc it came up as "F:\" with a blue question mark over the storage device icon. The first thing I did was Control Panel>View devices and printers and checked to see if the hard drive was being recognized. The system is recognizing the hard drive. When I click on the hard drive to open the properties window it comes up with:GeneralManufacturer: Unavailabl

:)

 

Blue question mark over my hard drive?

Is the device ‘seen’ under disk management?

Is the device ‘seen’ under My Computer?

Does the hard drive have a letter assigned?

I’ve found this here
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/for... which fixed the same problem for the user but in their case their hard drive was hidden:

[Start] [Run] [Regedit]

Registry Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment

Data Type: REG_SZ [String Value] // Value Name: DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES

Modify/Create the Value Name [DEVMGR_SHOW_NONPRESENT_DEVICES] according to the Value Data listed below.

Value Data: [1 = Show Devices / 0 = Hide Devices]

 

Overclock your hard drive!!!

Heres a much easier hack that I realized quite a few years ago that really does work!

REQUIREMENTS:

• Hard drive with molex power connection.
• PSU with more than 1 strand that has molex plugs on it.
• Wire strippers, soldering iron if you're fancy, electrical tape if you're not.

STEPS:

• Take the strand of connectors from your PSU, and decide which one will be the donator for this overclocking adventure.
• Cut the yellow and orange cables, then twist them together.
• Find the power connector you've chosen as the overclocking connector, and release the orange cable from the connector. Now use your preferred method to bind them together, then place it back together.
• Plug in a drive and feel the speed!

Congratulations! You've just overclocked your hard drive!

 

How to Partiton a Hard Drive in Vista

This is a way to get Vista to see another hard drive that is not associated with the OS. There is some times when your new hdd doesn't seem to want to work well with Vista. But, there is a solution in it.

Open the Computer Management By doing these steps.

• Click on the Start Button
• Click on Control Panel
• Click Administrative Tools
• Double click on Computer Management

You are now in the Navigation panel of the Computer Management.
When in Computer Management, you then have to allow the new drive to be recognized.

• Double click on Storage
• Double click on Disk Management

Now in the middle of your screen there is the layout of the Disk Drives that you have. The drives that are partitioned will show by the drive lettering. The others will just show up as having nothing at all in them. Below that there will be the Disk drives that are installed into the computer. You'll see that the primary one will all ways read as "Disk 0". Then you will have Disk 1 and so on. Under the Disks there will also see your CD-Rom drives.. If there is more then one, it will be labeled the same as Disk drives..

On to the Partitioning of the drive in question.

• Right Click on the drive
• Click to format the drive or Enable Volume. There will be a series of windows that open up. This is Vista's formatting. Just go threw the windows, and make sure everything is the way you want it to happen.
• Once the formatting is done, will take some time depending on the drive size.
• Right click on the drive
• Click on Mark the Partition as Active

After you have done those steps, The drive will be up and running threw Vista.



:Side Notes:
If you are not the Administer to the Os, then you will have to enable it..
You may also want to redo the drive lettering of it all. But, I really don't see a reason to do so. If you do, you have to redo drive paths and so forth.. A lot of work on something so small...