Reply With QuoteInstead of seaching on...
cannot load installer for volume
Try
"could not load installer for volume"
You'll have better luck...
K
I've had this persistent error on my laptop, which I guess is an error with my Harddrive controller or something related -- can't google up any solutions to it, however.
Basically the error pops up 3 times on boot-up, but then goes away and I can access my Harddrive normally, so while annoying, it hasn't been a meaningful problem. But I just bought a portable USB HD because I need to somehow back up my HD because it contains all my legal docs, and I guess this error is preventing me from accessing the portable drive (which I plugged into another computer and it worked fine).
Anyone have any advice on how to fix this problem, or can provide more information on its cause?
Instead of seaching on...
cannot load installer for volume
Try
"could not load installer for volume"
You'll have better luck...
K
Yeah, I did try that, but there were no solutions proposed -- some stuff you needed to register for. Some stuff about RAID potentially being a problem, but that's not applicable to me.
What OS are you using, and what service pack?
From what I read, it looks like it may be related to enlarging an XP disk with Partition Magic or changing the disk around somehow. Did you do anything like this? Dual boot or anything? Or did this just pop up out of the blue? Worse case scenario, you may have to reinstall Windows, but it doesn't sound like a hardwae issue, so that's the good news.
K
No, never messed around with partitions or anything. Using XP professional, updated to latest SP (this problem has endured). I may have replaced my HD once (it's a laptop) -- could something have gone wrong there?Originally Posted by Kevin J Baird
Worse comes to worse, you should call the external hdd support folks and see if they can help you.
How did you install the HD? Did you just image what was on the old HD and move it over? Or did you reinstall Windows from scratch? As, the problem might be from the first condition.
When you connect your USB drive, what error gets thrown up if any? Am curious to know if you get an error, or you just don't see the drive when it's connected. As you might just have a condition where Windows isn't assigning the drive a letter. In which case you have to go into Computer Management, Hard Drives (Or Drive Management or whatever the heck it's called... It's late and I Haven't slept yet.) and assign the drive a letter.
K
It was my office tech guys that did it, but they did take an image and move it over to a new drive, so that's probably the problem. Does that mean it has the wrong HD driver because it's loading the old one or something?
Ah - that's interesting -- no error message comes up, and it shows up in device manager fine - but it doesn't show up as an accessible drive in "my computer", so maybe that's the issue -- I'll look into that right away.When you connect your USB drive, what error gets thrown up if any? Am curious to know if you get an error, or you just don't see the drive when it's connected. As you might just have a condition where Windows isn't assigning the drive a letter. In which case you have to go into Computer Management, Hard Drives (Or Drive Management or whatever the heck it's called... It's late and I Haven't slept yet.) and assign the drive a letter.
No, it's not your HD's driver. It has something to do with enlarging a logical partition. Like you can expand an extended paritition no problem, but if you expand the logical you'll have the problem you mentioned. It sounds as though you have to start over from scratch, or deal with the errors. But these shouldn't be related to your USB drive issue, as far as I can tell. Try the drive letter thing, see if that helps.
K
This was really helpful -- something is obviously still messed up, but I could give a letter to the drive by going through disk management -- it STILL didn't show up as a drive in "my computer", but I could access it using the "open" option in disk management once it had been labelled. I moved the files that I wanted to back up to it, but of course that revealed another problem -- for some reason not clear to me, it would only accept "short file names" for the files/folders on the new drive (even though the files I'd transferred from my other computer had longer names). I guess I can rename them back from my other computer, but any idea why there was that restiction on my laptop (both using XP, laptop using professional, other using home)
Anyway, the bottom line is at least I backed up my stuff, so I really appreciate the help.
On my "volume" problem, I don't really understand the partition stuff you're referencing. I did note that there was an extra, unnamed drive (or partition) listed under drive management -- it says file system FAT, and healthy EISA configuration, which says it has (a mere) 31 megs, 30 megs of which free -- is that a phantom or unneeded partiton that's causing the problem? Can I delete or remove it? Any idea what the heck it is?
No you probably want to keep it. If you have a Dell laptop or something, the company has a partition setup that has drivers and things placed there so when you do a fresh install, the reinstall disks can find everything. (Or something to that effect anyway.)
You could always take it somewhere, but ultimately I'd say if it bothers you too much, you should just start over. A lot of the problems I read about make it sound like that's what people had to do to correct it. But if you ever figure it out, let me know, I'm curious...
K
Yeah, it is a Dell, so that probably explains it. It doesn't really bother me that much (especially since I leave it on almost constantly), since it just pops up the message 2-3 times on bootup and then goes away, with no adverse effect. Since it first arose though, I do a google search every few months to see if anyone has posted a solution to the problem, and will probably still do so. Probably upgrade this baby before I find one though.
Any idea why the file names were artificially restricted in size in Drive Management, as if I was running in DOS? That was weird.
Not sure if replacing the drive makes this function not work, but you could try hitting CTRL-ALT-D at startup (on the Dell splash screen that comes up right when you turn it on). That ordinarily runs a quick hard drive and controller self-test. If the 3rd party hard drive supports that (it's a firmware thing), then you might get some information.
The short filename 8.3 was probably because your computer, for whatever reason, thought the volume was fat12 or fat16. Instead of fat32 or ntfs (Depending on how you formatted it originally.) I believe FAT16 doesn't truly support long filenames. I think Windows tricks it by creating a unique 8.3 filename and linking to it's full name in Windows or some such craziness. I could be wrong though, just a guess.
K
That actually makes a lot of sense. Uh, anyway to correct that perception, or does it probably relate to my overall problem?
Dude, I owe you a bunch of pints for your help in this thread.
Well, I looked this problem up, and it seems that Windows XP has some sort of problem with writing long file names to a USB drive. The problem is corrected in Service Pack 2. Do you have Service Pack 2? It's supposedly still broken in Windows 2003.
And before anyone says something like, "I don't have Service Pack 2 and I write long file names all the time..." From what I read, it only seems to happen in certain situations, and usually when you open the drive from the Computer Management prompt.
If you already have SP2 installed... Dunno. But you can look it up. It does not seem related to your current problem.
K
Yeah, I do have SP 2 installed, but I am forced to open the drive through the drive management prompt (unlike on my other computer, where the drive shows up under my computer). So maybe it's just a limitation if you open the drive through the drive management prompt.
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