- lost access to second hard drive after defragging drive
- Posted by defragged on November 2nd, 2005
I have windows xp home edition. I have 2 hard drives in my computer. I was
defragging the secondary one. After it reached 98%, a message popped up
saying that the files could not be written. I didn't know what to do so I
exited defrag. After I rebooted, I couldn't access the second hard drive. I
get an error saying that device is not ready or not accessible. If I go to
the command prompt, the error is 'system cannot find the drive specified'
- Posted by Pegasus \(MVP\) on November 2nd, 2005
"defragged" <defragged@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:461F843E-B544-45D7-81DD-8AE423D10F94@microsoft.com...
> I have windows xp home edition. I have 2 hard drives in my computer. I
was
> defragging the secondary one. After it reached 98%, a message popped up
> saying that the files could not be written. I didn't know what to do so I
> exited defrag. After I rebooted, I couldn't access the second hard drive.
I
> get an error saying that device is not ready or not accessible. If I go
to
> the command prompt, the error is 'system cannot find the drive specified'
You probably had a malfunction in the defragging process,
causing the drive to be thrashed. Here are a few sites with
recovery tools - pehaps one of them will be of use:
http://www.restorer2000.com/r2k.htm
http://www.hddrecovery.com.au
http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz
http://www.runtime.org/
http://www.runtime.org/ (has a trial version)
www.acronis.com (RecoveryExpert)
In general I avoid using defraggers. The benefits are barely noticeable,
if at all, and there is a real risk of major damage. I have followed some
fierce discussions in various newsgroups about this subject. One
thing became obvious almost immediately: Those who were in favour
of frequent defragging were so purely because of their faith. None of
them had any hard evidence to back up claims of improved
performance. It seems the display of lots of contiguous files appeals
to their sense of tidiness whereas they find the multicoloured stripes
of a fragmented disk offensive. It's what I call the "Piss in the wetsuit
syndrome: It gives you a warm feeling but nobody notices any
difference."
- Posted by Triffid on November 2nd, 2005
Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
> "defragged" <defragged@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:461F843E-B544-45D7-81DD-8AE423D10F94@microsoft.com...
>
>>I have windows xp home edition. I have 2 hard drives in my computer. I
>
> was
>
>>defragging the secondary one. After it reached 98%, a message popped up
>>saying that the files could not be written. I didn't know what to do so I
>>exited defrag. After I rebooted, I couldn't access the second hard drive.
>
> I
>
>>get an error saying that device is not ready or not accessible. If I go
>
> to
>
>>the command prompt, the error is 'system cannot find the drive specified'
>
>
> You probably had a malfunction in the defragging process,
> causing the drive to be thrashed. Here are a few sites with
> recovery tools - pehaps one of them will be of use:
>
> http://www.restorer2000.com/r2k.htm
> http://www.hddrecovery.com.au
> http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz
> http://www.runtime.org/
> http://www.runtime.org/ (has a trial version)
> www.acronis.com (RecoveryExpert)
>
> In general I avoid using defraggers. The benefits are barely noticeable,
> if at all, and there is a real risk of major damage. I have followed some
> fierce discussions in various newsgroups about this subject. One
> thing became obvious almost immediately: Those who were in favour
> of frequent defragging were so purely because of their faith. None of
> them had any hard evidence to back up claims of improved
> performance. It seems the display of lots of contiguous files appeals
> to their sense of tidiness whereas they find the multicoloured stripes
> of a fragmented disk offensive. It's what I call the "Piss in the wetsuit
> syndrome: It gives you a warm feeling but nobody notices any
> difference."
I have my XP systems set to Ghost themselves to the local Linux file
server every 4 hours. I use XP's built in defrag utility regularly, not
because it noticeably improves performance, but because it significantly
reduces the total space consumed by the Ghost backup regime.
Are you saying XP's built in defrag utility is of poor quality, and
therefore not worth the risk?
Triffid
- Posted by Pegasus \(MVP\) on November 2nd, 2005
"Triffid" <triffid@nebula.net> wrote in message
news:cXV9f.4243$J14.272305@news20.bellglobal.com.. .
>
>
> Pegasus (MVP) wrote:
>
> > "defragged" <defragged@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> > news:461F843E-B544-45D7-81DD-8AE423D10F94@microsoft.com...
> >
> >>I have windows xp home edition. I have 2 hard drives in my computer. I
> >
> > was
> >
> >>defragging the secondary one. After it reached 98%, a message popped up
> >>saying that the files could not be written. I didn't know what to do so
I
> >>exited defrag. After I rebooted, I couldn't access the second hard
drive.
> >
> > I
> >
> >>get an error saying that device is not ready or not accessible. If I go
> >
> > to
> >
> >>the command prompt, the error is 'system cannot find the drive
specified'
> >
> >
> > You probably had a malfunction in the defragging process,
> > causing the drive to be thrashed. Here are a few sites with
> > recovery tools - pehaps one of them will be of use:
> >
> > http://www.restorer2000.com/r2k.htm
> > http://www.hddrecovery.com.au
> > http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz
> > http://www.runtime.org/
> > http://www.runtime.org/ (has a trial version)
> > www.acronis.com (RecoveryExpert)
> >
> > In general I avoid using defraggers. The benefits are barely noticeable,
> > if at all, and there is a real risk of major damage. I have followed
some
> > fierce discussions in various newsgroups about this subject. One
> > thing became obvious almost immediately: Those who were in favour
> > of frequent defragging were so purely because of their faith. None of
> > them had any hard evidence to back up claims of improved
> > performance. It seems the display of lots of contiguous files appeals
> > to their sense of tidiness whereas they find the multicoloured stripes
> > of a fragmented disk offensive. It's what I call the "Piss in the
wetsuit
> > syndrome: It gives you a warm feeling but nobody notices any
> > difference."
>
> I have my XP systems set to Ghost themselves to the local Linux file
> server every 4 hours. I use XP's built in defrag utility regularly, not
> because it noticeably improves performance, but because it significantly
> reduces the total space consumed by the Ghost backup regime.
>
> Are you saying XP's built in defrag utility is of poor quality, and
> therefore not worth the risk?
No, I'm not saying this at all - I would not have any evidence to
back up such a claim. I'm saying two things:
a) Frequent defragging appears to produce little if any benefits, and
b) Occasionally I see posts in newsgroups about defragging processes
chewing up drives.
You need to draw your own conclusions from a) and b) above.
- Posted by Andy on November 2nd, 2005
I'm going to speculate and say the drive had a heat related death.
When you defrag, the drive is constantly active, and if the drive is
large, defrag can take a long time. The drive can get quite hot,
especially if it's stacked under the other drive, and the drives
aren't adequately cooled with a fan.
On Tue, 1 Nov 2005 17:56:04 -0800, defragged
<defragged@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>I have windows xp home edition. I have 2 hard drives in my computer. I was
>defragging the secondary one. After it reached 98%, a message popped up
>saying that the files could not be written. I didn't know what to do so I
>exited defrag. After I rebooted, I couldn't access the second hard drive. I
>get an error saying that device is not ready or not accessible. If I go to
>the command prompt, the error is 'system cannot find the drive specified'
