All drives need formatting ???

[diesal]

Any help with this please - my system has been running Windows XP Pro for a couple of years OK. Suddenly when trying to access my small local network I get the following message " the volume does not contain a recognised file system." Also about the same time I cannot access my floppy drive, my internal Zip drive, USB pen drive or external USB connected hard drive - I get the message " the disk in drive ?? is not formatted " If I connect any of these devices to another PC they work fine.

Many thanks - Diesal

 

[bcastner]

There is nothing wrong with the devices. Do not format them.

Do a repair/upgrade reinstall of XP. Slipstream Service Pack 2 when you do this.

. slipstream help:
thread779-900263

. repair/upgrade reinstall:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

But I warn you this sounds more like a hardware failure than an operating system failure.

 

[edfair]

Too many failues all at once. Do you have floppy boot capability, or CD boot capability. Or even the XP CD booting by itself.

You may need to take it back to floppy and CD only to eliminate anything on the hard drive from being the problem.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[diesal]

Many thanks "bcastner" for you prompt reply - I have reloaded Win XP Pro with no effect on the original problem. I note your remark about hardware failure. However both my external USB devices work OK in another PC & the PC will boot from the floppy drive or CD. I have encountered a similar problem to mine in the past after a friend used Norton Anti Spam software - we had to re-format & reload from scratch to solve his problem - I don't want to do this.
At the time this happened to me I had just upgraded from Norton A/Virus 2002 to 2005 ! - I have both disabled & removed this software with no effect on the problem.
Since re-loading windows I can now see my Computer in " Network places " but still get the message " the volume does not contain a recognised file system." when I try to access the the rest of the Network.
Any other ideas or questions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[JJReynolds]

I have a user that upgraded their Norton Anti Virus and had this same thing happen. Diesal did you find a solution to this problem? Have you contacted Sysmantec?

 

[allteltec]

Did you by change install GO Back, it hids the HD's in your system from outher programs, Partition magic and Bert Pe can't see my HD's untill I disable Go Back. Hard to tell what a bad Go Back install would do.

 

[bcastner]

It is either a bad MBR, a bad partition table, boot sector or all three. Partition Disk Doctor can often fix these drives when they are reporting as unformatted. There is a free trial to see if it can help:

http://www.ptdd.com/

 

[512Stick]

I have the same problem with two machines on different hardware. Both are running XP Home and had run fine for years (even after SP2) before suddenly losing the ability to read USB flash drives. (The flash drives work on other machines, and the Palm sync program works thru the USB connection.) Each also fails to read from the attached CD-R/DVD unless the disk is in the drive at boot. It will then allow the program to be installed but loses the ability to read from the disk if the first disk is removed.

A thread in Experts Exchange suggests that the problem is the OS. I tried the "delete every device and every driver" fix - no luck. The repair install of XP didn't work. I have updated the BIOS, run Windows Update and installed all updates of all software and all drivers.

Another forum suggested that the problem involved Maxtor drives, but the Maxtor rep said it was an OS problem.

I, too, would like a fix that does not involve a clean re-install.

 

[diesal]

Thanks to all those who suggested a workaround.
Regarding the problem - unable to access any drives or network - dating from 22/1/2005.
I have now cured the problem which was apparently caused when I updated from NAV 2002 to NAV 2005.
I did this by 1st uninstalling NAV 2005 in the Control panel ( I previously did this step alone & it made no difference ).
2nd. I used Nortons RNIS.exe to remove any traces of earlier Norton products.

3rd. I Edited the Registry to remove all references to Norton or Symantec.

Once all these steps were carried out all my previously " not " working drives & Network now function as normal.
I have since re-installed NAV 2005 & everything still works OK

 

[512Stick]

I, too, fixed my drive problems with the CD, DVD-R, and USB connections. I uninstalled Nero 6, the Sonic crippleware program that came with the DVD as well as the similarly crippled Pinnacle bundle. Cleaned the registry with Registry Mechanic. All drives back, no formatting problems, all USB ports operational.

Take home lesson? Start uninstalling in reverse order any program loaded since the problem started and clean the registry.