Disk Management doesn’t load

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This morning I attached a camera to my computer with a USB cable before starting Windows. When Windows started, I found that the camera had taken on the drive letter of an external hard drive and pushed that hard drive to a different drive letter. This messes up quite a number of shortcuts etc. When I went to use Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Storage > Disk Management(Local) to fix the problem, it wouldn’t load. All I see is the icon for Disk Management (Local). After disconnecting the camera, and a restart, the problem remains. I am logged in as an administrator. Is there a way to get Disk Management back without having to use System Restore?

I’m using Windows 7 Home Premium, fully updated.

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I’m not sure about getting disk management back short of a restore, but what happens if you type disk manager in the search bar?

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You could try opening a command prompt and typing sfc /scannow.

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Reboot your computer, minus the camera attached. Once the system is up and running only then plug the camera in.
If you have a healthy operating system there should be no trouble with recognition of the new attachment.

You computer is more likely to interpret the drive in your card as “part of the system” and thereby displacing other drive letter asignments if you cold boot with it plugged in.

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Actually I did reboot the computer yesterday without the camera and Disk Management didn’t load. But then again this morning after I started the computer once again, I was able to launch Disk Manager in the usual way, though Control Panel.

Thanks everybody for all the suggestions, though. Who knows, I might — or somebody might — need them sometime

Looking at the larger picture, it distresses me that there might be some tool or Windows feature that I only use occasionally, and then have to roll way back to recover, and not know how far I need to roll back.

Can anyone recommend a utility to help me check for such problems and possibly repair them without a rollback? I do run backups, and in the past I’ve used JV16 Powertools and CCCleaner, but I’m wary of them — I had to undo changes once after using one of them (don’t remember which).

By the way, I had a similar problem a week or two ago with Windows Media Player. It stopped working when I tried to load .AVI files encoded with the XVID MP4 compressor. Then mysteriously, it recovered.

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Hi jsallen,

Right click computer, select ‘Manage’ then Device Manager.

33927-RR
click on the image to enlarge it.

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I share your concerns over jv16 powertools and CCleaner. sfc /scannow won’t cause you any loss and can repair some situations. Other than that, I would recommend the regular backups you seem to be doing. I also have System Restore enabled, to complement the weekly images I take.

Any situations that arise, best to try tackle them individually before resorting to system restore. As you said, if you don’t use a feature regularly, it may be hard to know when it started not working, so I wouldn’t go for a system or image restore immediately. We are also always available to help, when you need :).

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I don’t know if you have your external hard drive always connected, but it also should have been disconnected when trying to recover Disk Management. Once Windows is booted and Disk Management comes up on command or click, then plug the USB drive in again to test.

Disk Management can also be used to change or permanently assign a specific drive letter to your external hard drive. Once done this way, other USB devices will be less likely to displace this drive letter assignment, as it is forced. Even unplugging the hard drive and then plugging it back in should no longer displace its assigned drive letter in most cases.

-- rc primak

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Hi Bob,

I have 4 usb hdd’s & 2 thumb drives. If I plug them into the same port (one at a time) they all show the same drive letter and all work perfectly. The only time I get a different drive letter, is when 2 are used at the same time.

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You may have installed a drive tool or some other tool that disables Disk Management because it takes its place.

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