"Windows - No Disk" Error

[Mike at A+]

Had a power outage here in PA that lasted about 2 days. At the start, my UPS kicked in and gave me about 45 minutes to shut everything down. Toward the end, I wanted to copy some files to a flash drive. My computer didn't recognize the drive so I figured it was the waning power and just shut down with the drive still inserted. When power came back, I started seeing the error message "Windows - No Disk". It took over 30 clicks of the "X" button to eventually close this window. I've been getting the error message once or twice every day since power came back. In Googling the problem, one of the recommended solutions was to reinsert the flash drive and "stop" it before removing it. Tried that, no good. Another solution was to restore to a previous date. After trying several dates, I kept getting the message "Can't restore to that date, no files changed on your computer".

Any ideas???

[Dave Schwartz]

Ralph is probably the go-to guy for this, but I'd guess the system thinks there is still a drive plugged in.

I'd put the flash drive back, and try to boot. If it boots, I'd then remove the flash drive and reboot.

If that doesn't work, try booting in safe mode. Look around a little. Exit. Boot normally.

[hcap]

I doubt this is directly related to your problem, but had a similar error

I recently bought a new machine after a windows update screwed up my old one. I used the windows "Easy Transfer Utility" and Belkin usb cable to transfer settings and files over . Worked perfectly. Veery impressed. However when I clicked on any file in windows explorer, got a similar No Disk error Googled with no answers. Tried Dell, the vendor, no definitive answer.

After some time realized that I left the Belkin cable connected to both machines. Disconnected it and no more error

[headhawg]

What is your OS? Was it a bootable flash drive? Does the error message occur all of the time or only when the flash drive is inserted? When inserted, can you see the files on the drive? Was the drive plugged into a port on the computer or into another device like a printer with a media reader?

View the System log through Event Viewer and report any warning/error messages. My first idea is to for you to change the drive letter of the flash drive through disk management.

[Mike at A+]

Thanks for all the replies. Here's a snapshot of the disk management utility. One thing looks a little strange. My external drive (Elements) was always listed as the "J" drive. Now all of a sudden it shows up as "F".

As for the questions asked by headhawg, my OS is XP (with Media Center), the Flash drive was inserted into one of the 3 USB ports on the front panel of my tower and the error message seems to be appearing once or twice daily, most times when the computer is unattended (I leave it on 24x7).

[Red Knave]

Mike

I think Dave was on to something. I think your Windows is still looking for looking for disk J so you can change the drive letter back to J if you want to from the disk management utility. Just right-click on the drive letter and follow the prompts.
Failing that, try doing a "safely remove hardware" option from the system tray then unplugging/re-plugging?

[headhawg]

Mike,

With all of those removable drives you must have some kind of media reader or virtual disk software, yes? It seems like the drive assignment has gone wacky. Perhaps you can remove the reader or uninstall the virtual disk software if you have either to see if the problem goes away.

[HUSKER55]

Just a thought, if you went into your device manager and deleted those drives, wouldn't the computer go to the default driver when you reboot your computer for that drive?

I am assuming that something has to tell the computer that drive is there and what program runs it. If the OS recognizes the drive it has to have a default driver....doesn't it?

Like I said, just a thought.

[Dave Schwartz]

On the "ghost" drives issue: I have a machine that shows such a configuration. Apparently, USB 3 slots register as "drives" sometimes.

[JustRalph]

Lots of good suggestions

Are you sure it's seeking the flash drive?

Any chance you are having a hard drive problem?

After a power failure i always worry about drive integrity

Run a scan on the primary drive to be safe.

Also make sure your bios hasn't been altered. Just check the drive settings.

[Mike at A+]

OK, thanks again to all for the suggestions. I think I'm back to normal after doing the following:
1.) Click "Start"
2.) Right click "My Computer"
3.) Click "Manage"
4.) Click "Disk Management"
5.) Right click "Removable Drive J"
6.) Click "Change drive letters and paths"
7.) Click "Remove"
8.) Then change drive F back to J as it was formerly using steps 5-6

Woke up this morning and "Windows - No Disk" error was gone!

Note to headhawg: "All those removable drives" is as you suspect, a "Digital Media Reader" that accepts a few different types of devices like camera cards and USBs

Note to Ralph: I did a CHKDSK and no big issues were found. Also used Norton 360 to do some registry cleanup.

[JustRalph]

Nice work

Glad it worked out