[SOLVED] What to do with things on Hard Drive after Complete Windows Reinstall and diagnosis of original failure?

[Lagiacrus]

I had to reinstall windows on my computer due to an unescapable error, and am looking for help on how to deal with my secondary hard drive that had the majority of my files on it.

Some background:
For who knows how long, I've occasionally gotten the bsod faulty hardware corrupt page. Not common enough to be a major issue. The computer would restart and work fine for a long period of time. This is a gaming pc I built in 2015 I believe. It may have slowly increased in frequency, but I couldn't tell. Anyway, a couple of days ago I had one of these crashes when I clicked to start the game, Hardspace Shipbreakers. Except this time, I didn't have a normal restart. I had a 101 Initialization Failed error. Automatic repair did nothing. Restarting did nothing. I'm not a programmer by any means, but I followed several tutorials for different command prompts like bootrec and chkdsk (which as far as I could tell came up with no bad sectors, but 6 logs didn't report or something?), I also tried something that was supposed to fix the boot file or make a new one or something (can't remember the command). It didn't work. I tried resetting windows both saving my data and wiping everything. This failed at around 34% where I assume the computer had to restart and encountered the 101 error again. I tried resetting with new media on a thumbdrive. Didn't work.

Finally I redownloaded windows from the thumbdrive instead of resetting it, and this has worked as far as I'm aware.

My specs are:
i5-3570k cpu
gigabyte Z77X-UD5H mb
evga gtx 1070ti gpu (my only upgrade)
xfx pro black edition 750 watt psu
Noctua NH-D14 cooler
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL8D-8GBXM ram
Western Digital WD1002FAEX Black 1TB hdd
Samsung Electronics 840 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Single Unit Version Internal Solid State Drive MZ-7TE120BW ssd
Windows 10 (home?)


So for reinstalling windows I disconnected my hdd and got rid of all partitions on my ssd. I successfully downloaded windows on my ssd. My first reboot the HDD wasn't visible. I went into bios and it has Windows Boot Drive. I tried disabling it and making it boot from the SSD and making the HDD higher up the chain. It didn't like it and wouldn't boot until I reverted that change. Now, doing nothing, my HDD is visible and can be accessed. Go figure. I'm actually unsure if the Windows Boot Drive thing is still there, and I was reading up on it more but haven't finished that.

Here is where I need some help with my HDD. To explore, I tried clicking the executable for steam, and it gave me a path error but fixed itself. After this, I was able to launch a game and still had my save data.

On this drive I have my documents, photos, downloads, and programs. Obviously some of this stuff (I'm assuming anything program related) is going to have problems but I'm guessing the media won't? Is there a way to partially save the program data, like copy sections of it?

None of the old programs show up in control panel so I can't actually uninstall them. Do I just manually delete everything? Only parts? Make a new My Stuff folder and reinstall programs there? Do I need to format the drive or something?

What about drivers etc? They should still be there but I'm assuming they don't work?




Any help with how to salvage/setup my HDD, and a diagnosis of the original corruption/problem in case I need to make fixes now, would be greatly appreciated!.


Thanks so much for your help, I really appreciate it.

 

[USAFRet]

When did this new install on the SSD, was it the ONLY drive connected?

 

[Lagiacrus]

When did this new install on the SSD, was it the ONLY drive connected?

Yes, but I did neglect to unhook* my disk drive!

 

[USAFRet]

Yes, but I did neglect to unhook* my disk drive!

Either it was or it wasn't.

1. Please test this now. Power off, physically disconnect the HDD, power up. Does it work?
2. Please show us a screencap of the Disk Management window, with both drives connected.

 

[Lagiacrus]

Either it was or it wasn't.

1. Please test this now. Power off, physically disconnect the HDD, power up. Does it work?
2. Please show us a screencap of the Disk Management window, with both drives connected.

Sorry, I meant I have a disk drive in addition to my HDD and SSD, for running CD's (maybe they aren't called that, mb). I unhooked my HDD but did not unhook my CD drive. But only the SSD showed up when installing windows as an option.

I will do the disconnect and report back as well after you respond.

 

[USAFRet]

From your description and screencap, all is good.

Now...as to the contents of that HDD.
What, specifically is on it? You mentioned Steam? What else?

 

[Lagiacrus]

From your description and screencap, all is good.

Now...as to the contents of that HDD.
What, specifically is on it? You mentioned Steam? What else?

It has the folder My Stuff, containing: 3D printing files/profiles, a Blender file with some projects, a Digital Art file with art png's, a My documents file with documents, a My downloads file where I put any downloaded but not executed file (so lots of installers), a My Games file that doesn't get used much directly except by a game or two, a My music file with music, a My pictures file with pictures, a My Programs file where all the fully installed programs (including steam) go and I think maybe my drivers?, and a My videos file with a couple of videos.

Also in the HDD but not in My stuff is program files x86 used by Origin, a Twitch file, and 10-20 individual files, maybe 9 of which are .dll files.

 

[USAFRet]

It has the folder My Stuff, containing: 3D printing files/profiles, a Blender file with some projects, a Digital Art file with art png's, a My documents file with documents, a My downloads file where I put any downloaded but not executed file (so lots of installers), a My Games file that doesn't get used much directly except by a game or two, a My music file with music, a My pictures file with pictures, a My Programs file where all the fully installed programs (including steam) go and I think maybe my drivers?, and a My videos file with a couple of videos.

Also in the HDD but not in My stuff is program files x86 used by Origin, a Twitch file, and 10-20 individual files, maybe 9 of which are .dll files.

In the old system, this was the D drive?
Not the OS drive?

 

[Lagiacrus]

In the old system, this was the D drive?
Not the OS drive?

It was actually the E drive so I'm not sure what changed there. I think the order in the BIOS changes that? Which I did change the order when I was trying to fix the Windows Boot thing.

No it was not the OS drive. That was my C drive, the SSD.

 

[USAFRet]

It was actually the E drive so I'm not sure what changed there. I think the order in the BIOS changes that? Which I did change the order when I was trying to fix the Windows Boot thing.

No it was not the OS drive. That was my C drive, the SSD.

OK then, no problem.
You can use it exactly as it is.

And the drive letter changing from the old E to now D is normal.

 

[Lagiacrus]

OK then, no problem.
You can use it exactly as it is.

And the drive letter changing from the old E to now D is normal.

Do you know what happened to cause this? Is there anything I need to fix? What about all of the programs that don't show up as installed but are installed on the HDD? What about drivers?

Thank you for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

Do you know what happened to cause this? Is there anything I need to fix? What about all of the programs that don't show up as installed but are installed on the HDD? What about drivers?

Thank you for your help.

You did a fresh install on the SSD.
This requires a reinstall of all your applications. Even if the drive letter was the same, the new OS knows nothing about them. This includes drivers as well.

 

[Lagiacrus]

You did a fresh install on the SSD.
This requires a reinstall of all your applications. Even if the drive letter was the same, the new OS knows nothing about them. This includes drivers as well.

Sorry I meant do you know what caused the 2 errors in the beginning? Steam was able to fix the path but I'm assuming every other program/drivers needs to be reinstalled? Will only deleting them (because they don't actually show and thus can't be uninstalled in control panel) cause problems?

 

[USAFRet]

Sorry I meant do you know what caused the 2 errors in the beginning? Steam was able to fix the path but I'm assuming every other program/drivers needs to be reinstalled? Will only deleting them (because they don't actually show and thus can't be uninstalled in control panel) cause problems?

The ideal thing is to move all your personal files (Blender, Doc, Music, etc) to elsewher, and wipe that drive clean.
Then, move that stuff back.

Or, you can take the time to pick and choose what to leave and what to remove.

The uninstall for those applications does not work, because the Registry in the new OS has no references for them.

 

[Lagiacrus]

Is there a marked advantage to "wiping" the drive compared to just manually deleting things? Is "wiping" the same function (right click>delete)?

Do you have an idea what caused the faulty hardware corrupt page and subsequent 101 initialization failed errors? I'm concerned they might just come back if something like my motherboard needs replaced.

Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

Is there a marked advantage to "wiping" the drive compared to just manually deleting things? Is "wiping" the same function (right click>delete)?

Do you have an idea what caused the faulty hardware corrupt page and subsequent 101 initialization failed errors? I'm concerned they might just come back if something like my motherboard needs replaced.

Thanks.

Time.
But mostly, it depends on how that drive is configured and what is on it.

And only you know that.


What caused the original fault? No idea.