Phantom O/S ?

[Sebastian42]

Previously when THIS PC became 'non-responding', I could find that an HDD was not being recognised; typically reseating the connections to it would fix that. I am now finding that it is C:\ which is lacking from THIS PC - obviously I can not reseat those leads without 'crashing' the PC. Seems bizarre that an invisible drive still operates the PC functions. The absence of C:\ criples Save As - amongst other things no doubt. Would appreciate enlightenment.

 

[Wolfie]

Hi,

can you open Computer Management > Disk Management and paste it please. Might be a corrupted disk drive?.

 

[Sebastian42]

It shows in Disk Management in a totally normal way, but not in the LEFT pane of a non-responding THIS PC. In an old browser, there was the option to attach pics, but I could not send them because "Security error occurred." So I opened the thread in the latest Chrome browser - it only allows hyperlinks.

 

[Sebastian42]

A second attempt in Firefox v50 did NOT give the security warning - so here are the pics ...

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Sebastian,

did you set the drive letters or was it done automatically by the system?. I ask as it is unusual to have an "A" drive these days!, I assume that "Backup" is an attached HDD/SSD and not an "A" drive?.

 

[Sebastian42]

I set all the letters except C:\; A:\ is a USB and I also have a B:\ USB that I use once a week.

 

[Wolfie]

I set all the letters except C:\; A:\ is a USB and I also have a B:\ USB that I use once a week.

I think you should rename A: to E. and B: to F. as I assume that is why is it slow to load????. This is only a theory though, just to be clear!.

 

[Sebastian42]

I have had A:\ and B:\ like that for a very long time - years. The disappearance of C:\ is quite new, so is not likely to be caused by an old setting. I have not said that loading is slow. The C:\ works well, but often now, does not show in THIS PC, even though it shows in Disk Management.

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Sebastion,

when I mentioned "rename" I actually meant "reassign" the drive letters as I still think that is your problem as there may be old code running on Win 10 telling the system to boot from drive A or B????.

 

[Sebastian42]

But there is NO problem booting;

 

[Wolfie]

But there is NO problem booting;

I am officially lost now Lol!. I would still try re-assigning the drive letters just as a matter of course!. I really don't know what else to suggest?.

 

[Sebastian42]

Thank you for trying

 

[Wolfie]

Found something of interest about reassigning drive letters.

So when I built a new computer recently with two internal drives, one for the OS and one for data, I thought, hey!, I’ll make my data drive “A”. I felt all rebellious until I discovered that Windows will not index drives lettered A or B.

Took me quite a while to figure out what the problem was, but I found some other people who suffered the same issue when they used A or B for a [primary] drive. As soon as I assigned that drive a different letter, windows indexed the drive. So much for being rebellious.

Source. What Are the Windows A: and B: Drives Used For? (howtogeek.com)

 

[Sebastian42]

I don't understand what it means for 'windows to index a drive'; I doubt whether I can be said to have used A and/or B as a PRIMARY drive (I don't know that that means either). I my case A, is a permanently attached USB, to which I second-save MOST of the data that I change; and B is a clone of A. I connect and update B every week.

 

[Wolfie]

Here is some info about indexing.

Search indexing in Windows 10: FAQ (microsoft.com)

The point I am trying to make about drive letter naming is simply that you should not use A: or B: as a drive letter, but instead should use any letter after C:, simple as that!.

 

[Sebastian42]

For what it is worth, I will report that for about two weeks I had a much better response from a clone-converted-to system-disk - but the FREQUENT absence of C:\ from THIS PC persisted.
I had other serious problems which I did not address in this thread. HDSentinel showed me that the original drive (SSD) was perfect, but the clone-I-was-using-as-system, had at least one bad sector, so I reverted to the original SSD as my system (carrying a clone of the clone), and the other serious problems (loss of mouse cursor, and frequent crashing) have NOT returned.
In the meantime I have become aware of the way I can possibly diagnose the cause of problems by looking at Event Viewer. So far I can see there are many reports of errors. and warnings and failures etc etc.
Armed with information from Event Viewer, I may be able to make some headway when issues re-occur.