DD10 has 'lost' my eSATA

[Earthling]

Recently removed the VistaPE partition from my eSATA as I am now booting the VistaPE ISO directly with Grub4DOS. However I had overlooked the fact that the VistaPE partition was the only primary partition on the drive, and now when I run DD10, either in Vista or from the CD, the eSATA drive is no longer listed. Seems DD10 requires at least one primary partition in order to 'see' a drive.

I have tried shrinking the single extended logical partition using Vista's Disk Management in an attempt to create sufficient space to create a new primary partition, but it said it could only shrink 540MB and having accepted that I still don't have any unallocated space to work with.

I need to get this drive up in DD but atm cannot think of any way this can be done.

[MudCrab]

Does the Safe Mode version of DD see the eSATA drive?

Are there any errors on the remaining partition? A chkdsk /f scan might help.

DD doesn't require any partitions to exist, but DD and TI can both have problems properly seeing drives (including flashdrives) that get into a certain state.

Another thing that might make a difference is to do an MBR repair on the eSATA drive.

[Earthling]

DD10 safe mode from the CD hangs when it gets to the eSATA, and simply fails to detect it at all in Vista. I'm running a chkdsk atm - it's taking a while!

As there are only data files on the eSATA I've never given any thought to its MBR. Obviously atm I can't use DD to copy the MBR from the primary hard disk, but could install Grub4DOS to the MBR from Vista. Or should I install a 'standard' MBR to the eSATA, and if so how do I do that?

[Earthling]

... a bit more info -

TI 11 can see the 'missing' eSATA, both in Vista and from the CD and CHKDSK gave the drive a completely clean bill of health. It's just DD that has 'lost' it, so I did a clean install of DD but it's still the same.

[MudCrab]

It wouldn't hurt to try updating the MBR. I had to do this on my eSATA drive recently because of detection problems using another program. It had an older Grub4DOS MBR and it didn't like it. Updating to the later version fixed the problem.

[Earthling]

... mmmm.... something weird, can't get the Whole Disk MBR option. Grub4DOS message 'Unknown image type'

[Earthling]

MudCrab:

As I see it the only options I have are either to accept that DD will never see it, or to use Vista's Disk Management to delete the volume and recreate it. The latter entails first ensuring the safety of 170GB of files, so a last resort really.

Do you have any other thoughts before I commit to that?

[MudCrab]

Let me check on something first.

[MudCrab]

DD will copy the MBR of an existing drive to another drive:

Copying Master Boot Record

You can copy Master Boot Record (MBR) from one hard disk to another.
To copy MBR:

• Select the disk with MBR.
• Select Disk - Advanced - Copy MBR or a similar item in the Advanced sidebar list or by clicking Copy MBR on the toolbar.
• Choose a hard disk to which you want to copy master boot record of the specified disk.
• By clicking OK , you'll add a pending operation of copying master boot record.
• Apply the change.

Doing this seems to keep the Disk Signature and partitions intact on the destination drive (I did several different tests on this just now to check).

I've also sent you a PM with some more information.

[Earthling]

The problem there is that DD simply can't see the eSATA at all, not from Vista and not from CD, so copying to it with DD isn't an option open to me.

I'll now take a close look at the suggestions in the PM, for which thanks. Anything is preferable to backing up all that stuff to NAS and having to restore it all afterwards

[MudCrab]

Originally Posted by Earthling

The problem there is that DD simply can't see the eSATA at all, not from Vista and not from CD, so copying to it with DD isn't an option open to me.

I remembered that after I posted it. Too many things going on at one time.

Does the eSATA drive also connect via USB? If so, have you tried that to see if it's detected differently?

[MudCrab]

Another option, if TI can see it, would be to restore the MBR from an image to the drive.

[Earthling]

Using MBR.EXE I restored a std mbr to the disk but it hasn't changed anything. Last remaining option is to connect it by USB but will leave that now until tomorrow as not sure where its power supply is.

Many thanks for your help Paul.

[Earthling]

Eureka! Would you believe that a free partition manager could have sorted this? Using EASEUS I was able to resize the partition down a bit, and after a couple of reboots DD could see it once again.

Easeus Partition Master looks to be a useful sidekick to DD, maybe even substitute for. Certainly saved my bacon on this occasion.