Fix Missing Windows XP, Vista Hard Drive Partition in Windows 7
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It has been more then two week now for windows 7 beta public release and I am sure by this time most of all egger users would have already installed windows 7 and exploring windows 7 new features. Installing Windows 7 on another hard drive partition along with Windows XP or Vista is the first option to opt for as this option let us to keep our existing stable operating system and also experiment with windows 7.
Once windows 7 will get expiry it would be easier to switch back to older operating by just removing windows 7 partition and setting boot manager. But after installing windows 7 in dual boot system i have seen many users are facing one typical issue of missing hard drive partition of windows XP or Vista. Here is quick fix of hard drive does not show up in windows 7.
The main reason of hard drive partition missing or not shown in windows 7 is that drive letter of the Windows Vista or XP partition is not assigned in Windows 7.
Fix Hard Drive Partition Missing in Windows 7
1. Click on start and type diskmgmt.msc on search bar (on Run command)
2. This will open the Disk Management interface that is displaying all connected hard drives and partitions.
3. Now select Drive from lower half of your disk management interface which doesn’t have any drive letter.
4. Right Click & Select “Change Drive Letter and Paths” from the context menu.
5. Now click on the Add button in the next menu and pick a drive letter from the pull down menu.
6. Click ok to assign selected drive letter and check your windows explorer or my computer to confirm missing drive of windows XP or Vista is shown up or not.
Reader Comments
Hi,
I did what you recommand and I now see my XP partition. The problem is that I cannot boot in XP. It says that there is missing files. I had to re-install the xp boot loader and then re-install 7. Am I the only one who had this problem?
Thanks
Thanks
Great, thanks!
2Francois Cote
>>The problem is that I cannot boot in XP.
>>It says that there is missing files.
I have another trouble – after access from Win7 my WinXP was ‘dead’, means most system applications won’t to load (I just run task manager, but explorer and etc couldn’t run).
That fixed the problem. Have been searching for a solution for a while, thanks.
brilliant.
Thanks a lot :D
wow, that works….it was a new drive and i had formatted and partitioned it and had about 80gigs that did not show up…i found your blog and tried the fix and it worked….wow…thanks
This works great. Fix my problem. Now I have all my partition recognized by Windows. Thanks !!! :)
thanks so much, windows 7 didn’t see my secondary partition cause of an error in the name. this one fixed. great! windows 7 is very cool
Right clicking the hidden partition (which has vista installed) only gives the,’delete volume’ option. Now what?
thanks so much, i accidently set my new partion for w7 as logical, no primary, didnt click till i had 7 installed, and couldnt find my drive, this was very helpful, all my drivers etc are on the the now unhidden drive.
Thanks! Windows didn’t recognize one of my hard drives so i thought that i fuked up installing windows.
Genius! Thanks I was started to panic there.
Thanks!!!
Thank you so much.
Thought I’d never get the drive back.
Thank you. You saved tons of data from beeing deleted.
Thank you so much!!!! You save my life! ;)))