Need help resolving a hard drive issue

[hitman]

Just had a disk go bad, and that drive had to be removed. All of the software that was on that drive cannot be reinstalled because I get an error message saying access denied - invalid drive path. I cant install because I need to uninstall it from the dead drive. I cant uninstall because the drive is missing, and I cant reinstall because it wants to repair the software first in a defunked location. Some odd reason, it just wants to verify the files are there before it repairs.

 

I cant reassign the drive letter, because its been taken. How would I go about solving this issue? Perhaps force a fresh installation?

[Bucic]

Something's not right. How do you even start your system if the original drive has been removed?

 

Also, what exactly gave you the 'access denied - invalid drive path' error. Windows, after it starts? Windows, before it starts? (the grey DOS-like letters)

[cichlidfan]

If that was not your system disk, what software was on it? It sounds like there was something critical to Windows on there.

[BIGNEWY]

the software will have registry entries that will need to be deleted before you reinstall.

 

that is how I solved the issue when one of my drives went bad.

[hitman]

Something's not right. How do you even start your system if the original drive has been removed?

 

Also, what exactly gave you the 'access denied - invalid drive path' error. Windows, after it starts? Windows, before it starts? (the grey DOS-like letters)

Its my D drive that bit the big one. C is where my windows resides. D drive was my RAID array.

Edited April 27, 2014 by hitman

[hitman]

If that was not your system disk, what software was on it? It sounds like there was something critical to Windows on there.

Hardly. Its REX and Grand Theft Auto 4 that Im having issues with.....

[hitman]

the software will have registry entries that will need to be deleted before you reinstall.

 

that is how I solved the issue when one of my drives went bad.

Is there any way to delete all references to the defunct drive? Ive had quite a bit of stuff on that hard drive, but only a few instances where its caused me some problems. Ive tried Ccleaner and TuneUp Utilities to clean the registry, but this stuff is like herpes.

[cichlidfan]

You may have to hand search the registry and delete item by item. CCleaner usually works but some programs can be difficult.

[Bucic]

You may have to hand search the registry and delete item by item. CCleaner usually works but some programs can be difficult.

I second that.

You should use a proper registry editor providing search&replace/delete functionality and remove the entries. Then, optionally, sweep with CCleaner. Backup your whole registry first.

 

An alternative:

1. Install the said games on another computer, same system (e.g. Win 7 x64)

2. Connect your replacement drive to the affected computer and set the drive letter to D:

3. Copy the installed games from the other computer to the replacement D: drive.

 

This may not work now as you've fiddled with registry cleaners.

[BitMaster]

Hey,

 

there are many software products that can fix your registry issues, the one I use professionally is called jv16-powertools. It has an over decade old history of providing excellent results and I can only recommend it. It works for 60 days in full mode and should fix all your registry needs.

 

http://www.macecraft.com is the DL site

 

Run it in EXPERT mode, got to REMOVE SOFTWARE, checkmark what you want to have removed and choose the non-integrated non-windows way to PULL IT OUT like weed :)

 

You have to REBOOT your machine to have jv16 do it. Shortly before Win has fully booted it will halt and start removing your registry keys and any left over files that may reside on other, aka Win-Sys Common Folders etc. places.

 

This tool has fixed more PC's in my life than I can count.

 

You may also take advantage of it's other features, they all work very well.

 

Make a BACKUP of all steps as suggested by the program when it goes to work, you can restore ANYTHING you did with it in case something goes wrong.

 

A good and recommended option is to COMPRESS registry after you fixed your PC. This also is done while rebooting.

 

Check back to me via PM if you need further help. I can also Teamviewer in if u really get stuck or need professional help. We will get you back on track :) !!

 

Bit

[BitMaster]

I may add, there are dozens of registry cleaners out there that break more than they fix, this is way I use JV16 and none other, tested most of them, deinstalled most of them on client PC's and installed JV16 to fix what others broke.

 

Also, it is an AXE like program, it kills anything you point it to, don't overdo it. Go step by step when removing stuff so your backup only contains a few or single prigs you fiddle with. Do not checkmark dozens of prigs at once if you are unsure what you are doing. One by One so you can trace back what went wrong when.

 

It only ever broke 1 thing in my knowledge and that wasn't bad, it broke my Brother Fax Link many years ago but got fixed due to newer versions of jv16 taking care of that issue. That was the only failure it ever did in HUNDREDS of tasks I threw it at.

 

Bit

[hitman]

I second that.

You should use a proper registry editor providing search&replace/delete functionality and remove the entries. Then, optionally, sweep with CCleaner. Backup your whole registry first.

 

An alternative:

1. Install the said games on another computer, same system (e.g. Win 7 x64)

2. Connect your replacement drive to the affected computer and set the drive letter to D:

3. Copy the installed games from the other computer to the replacement D: drive.

 

This may not work now as you've fiddled with registry cleaners.

I wish I could do this, Windows has D drive assigned already and wont relinquish it. I cant even assign a new hard drive to D...which is kind of the problem, because this is why I cant install.

Hey,

 

 

 

www.macecraft.com is the DL site

Will give this a shot...

[Bucic]

I wish I could do this, Windows has D drive assigned already and wont relinquish it. I cant even assign a new hard drive to D...which is kind of the problem,

Make sure you have an administrator rights. I mean launch the disk management/comp. management tool with admin rights. Rightclick > run as administrator, IIRC. Then report on what's the actual problem:

the D is already taken

or

what option is greyed-out

or

the actual error and its source.

[hitman]

Just to bounce an idea off of heads here, the directory D: still exists, but it says insert disk into drive when trying to access the directory. Heres the quirk - BIOS recognizes the hard drive, it allows me to set it up in a RAID array. It slows it down quite a bit, and placing it on an external source only recognizes it as a cd drive...

[hitman]

Make sure you have an administrator rights. I mean launch the disk management/comp. management tool with admin rights. Rightclick > run as administrator, IIRC. Then report on what's the actual problem:

the D is already taken

or

what option is greyed-out

or

the actual error and its source.

Disk management doesnt give me any options. Ive been at this computer tweaking stuff for little over 12 years, this has to be the weirdest thing Ive ever encountered.

 

Ok...new thing - my D drive is now my blu ray player...how the hell do I change this drive letter???

 

Ok, all fixed. Here was my issue: when I installed my new SSD, I had to change my bios from RAID to AHCI, which deleted my raid array. I rebuilt the RAID array, but one of the disks isnt uniform with the other two. The disk was showing up as an unaccessable dynamic disk in Disk Management for some reason or other. I had to delete the drive and reformat it, and now its showing up as a valid disk again. Doing so allowed me to reallocate my D drive to somewhere else.

Edited April 27, 2014 by hitman

[Pikey]

The apps are referring to D:\ from within your profile which is in C:\Users\<username>. If you cannot find the applications folders in the profile to delete to prevent this, then you should do the opposite and change profile and copy the good parts back in.

 

In other words, create a new user and make it an administrator. Relog to this user and copy items such as your desktop and folders under appdata and similar to your new profile. It's guaranteed to be clean and working since it's never heard of D:\. Incidentally not sure why you didn't find these things in your profile, they live mostly under \username\appdata\local or \all users\the same or Public\the same

 

Should you remember something later you never lost the data and you can go hunting for it in the comfort of something working fine.

 

Not sure how to get Windows to give up it's claim on the drive letter - I've had that, it isn't changeable by any normal means certainly not if it's the bootable partition, I think your loss was the root cause Windows switched. I would leave it alone because it makes no difference ultimately other than to annoy us and calling drives by their letter assignment programmatically is dangerous and one of the reasons you are in this mess.

 

By the way your solution for this (in the future) is junctions and symbolic links. if they break due to failure you can replace them without losing data. I've got junctions to my D:\ drives for my profile since i didn't want my grotesquely large profile consuming SSD space either. It works beautifully, Windows thinks my profile is on my C:\ drive when it's on a slower older one. In this manner you can redirect all your large space taking folders to other storage :)

 

HTH

[Pikey]

Oh and re changing the drive letter assignment for non system drives you can follow these steps.

1. Open Disk Management from Computer Management or wherever you like.

 

2. On the right-hand side of the screen, locate and right-click on the drive that you wish to change the drive letter of and choose Change Drive Letter and Paths....

 

3. In the Change Drive Letter and Paths window, click on the Change... button.

 

4. Choose the drive letter you want from the drop down menu.

 

As I said above, I used to redirect drives using Windows Shell folders but it's easier to let Windows keep default locations for everything and use symbolic links to put program files and profiles on different physical disks to conserve space.

[hitman]

The apps are referring to D:\ from within your profile which is in C:\Users\<username>. If you cannot find the applications folders in the profile to delete to prevent this, then you should do the opposite and change profile and copy the good parts back in.

 

In other words, create a new user and make it an administrator. Relog to this user and copy items such as your desktop and folders under appdata and similar to your new profile. It's guaranteed to be clean and working since it's never heard of D:\. Incidentally not sure why you didn't find these things in your profile, they live mostly under \username\appdata\local or \all users\the same or Public\the same

 

Should you remember something later you never lost the data and you can go hunting for it in the comfort of something working fine.

 

Not sure how to get Windows to give up it's claim on the drive letter - I've had that, it isn't changeable by any normal means certainly not if it's the bootable partition, I think your loss was the root cause Windows switched. I would leave it alone because it makes no difference ultimately other than to annoy us and calling drives by their letter assignment programmatically is dangerous and one of the reasons you are in this mess.

 

By the way your solution for this (in the future) is junctions and symbolic links. if they break due to failure you can replace them without losing data. I've got junctions to my D:\ drives for my profile since i didn't want my grotesquely large profile consuming SSD space either. It works beautifully, Windows thinks my profile is on my C:\ drive when it's on a slower older one. In this manner you can redirect all your large space taking folders to other storage :)

 

HTH

Ive fixed it, and listed the fix above. It was a drive that was allocated to a RAID array, and this disk wasnt identical to the other two disks in the array. When I deleted the array, windows kept recognizing it as part of the array and marked it as an unallocated disk. I had to delete this and start from scratch with the disk, and Ive been able to reassign the disk to D again. This created a bunch of registry issues, but it fixed my big issue. The rest I can fix on my own.

[Bucic]

Ive fixed it, and listed the fix above. It was a drive that was allocated to a RAID array, and this disk wasnt identical to the other two disks in the array. When I deleted the array, windows kept recognizing it as part of the array and marked it as an unallocated disk. I had to delete this and start from scratch with the disk, and Ive been able to reassign the disk to D again. This created a bunch of registry issues, but it fixed my big issue. The rest I can fix on my own.

Pikey has given some valuable info applicable to your case nonetheless.

[hitman]

Pikey has given some valuable info applicable to your case nonetheless.

Ill argue the case that I already knew how to do this, but its valueable for others who dont know.

[SkateZilla]

Just had a disk go bad, and that drive had to be removed. All of the software that was on that drive cannot be reinstalled because I get an error message saying access denied - invalid drive path. I cant install because I need to uninstall it from the dead drive. I cant uninstall because the drive is missing, and I cant reinstall because it wants to repair the software first in a defunked location. Some odd reason, it just wants to verify the files are there before it repairs.

 

I cant reassign the drive letter, because its been taken. How would I go about solving this issue? Perhaps force a fresh installation?

 

What software is Causing this problem?

[hitman]

What software is Causing this problem?

It wasnt software, it was a hardware issue. The hardware issue was causing the software issue, where all the registry items were directed to my dvd rom drive due to a failure of a disk in my RAID array. Windows reassigned my dvd drive as D, whereas my RAID array was formerly known as D drive.

[cichlidfan]

The speed from a RAID array is nice but unless you are using a config that can survive a drive failure, it isn't worth it. A typical two drive RAID 0 array, while making things nice and fast, doubles the likelihood of a failure.

[SkateZilla]

The speed from a RAID array is nice but unless you are using a config that can survive a drive failure, it isn't worth it. A typical two drive RAID 0 array, while making things nice and fast, doubles the likelihood of a failure.

 

 

 

Enter RAID 0+1, to where the RAID-0 Drives are Mirrored to a 3rd Drive.

 

Raid Array Fails, Replace Drive, Restore from Mirrored Drive.

[SkateZilla]

It wasnt software, it was a hardware issue. The hardware issue was causing the software issue, where all the registry items were directed to my dvd rom drive due to a failure of a disk in my RAID array. Windows reassigned my dvd drive as D, whereas my RAID array was formerly known as D drive.

 

I know, I meant which software was not able to uninstall/install/repair.

 

most of the time you just wipe it's registry entry for Install Path and it will allow you to re-install.