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Here is my problem.

I have 2 harddrives. An 80 gig and a 40 gig. I run my 80 gig as master
with the OS on it, and my 40 gig is a slave. One day my computer stopped
working for some odd reason. **I've been having problems since I purchased
it** It would not load WinXP. I formatted/partitioned and reinstalled my
OS ((tried WinME and WinXP)) back onto my 80gig drive. For some reason,
when the computer loaded up after the installation my 40 gig slave drive was
not showing up on My Computer. I had no access to it.

I reinstalled my OS a couple times, and finally my drive showed up after I
changed the harddrive cable. However now the 40 gig is showing up as not
formatted. When I try to access the drive, it says that the drive is not
formatted, and asks me if I want to format it now. I don't want to do that
because I don't want to lose any information that I had on the drive.

How can I get my drive back to the state it was in before I ran into these
problems, without losing any info that was on the drive? I'm lost

Thanks for your time!

"Heineken" <Happily-> wrote in message
news:cqhhb.267768$ able.rogers.com...
> Here is my problem.
>
> I have 2 harddrives. An 80 gig and a 40 gig. I run my 80 gig as master
> with the OS on it, and my 40 gig is a slave. One day my computer stopped
> working for some odd reason. **I've been having problems since I
purchased
> it** It would not load WinXP. I formatted/partitioned and reinstalled my
> OS ((tried WinME and WinXP)) back onto my 80gig drive. For some reason,
> when the computer loaded up after the installation my 40 gig slave drive
was
> not showing up on My Computer. I had no access to it.
>
> I reinstalled my OS a couple times, and finally my drive showed up after I
> changed the harddrive cable. However now the 40 gig is showing up as not
> formatted. When I try to access the drive, it says that the drive is not
> formatted, and asks me if I want to format it now. I don't want to do
that
> because I don't want to lose any information that I had on the drive.
>
> How can I get my drive back to the state it was in before I ran into these
> problems, without losing any info that was on the drive? I'm lost
>
> Thanks for your time!
>
>

Well I hope that someone will know better than me - but I would say that you
will have to format the HD as it is unformatted - this happened to me
recently - I am not quite sure why either, but I had lost all my data

XP? - sounds like you have reinstalled it as Fat32 and the second drive is
NTFS.
Explore2fs is a utility for exploring Linux ex2fs partitions from windows.
The same crowd have one for reading NTFS from FAT - have a look for it.

In article
<cqhhb.267768$ .rogers.com>, Happily-
says...
> Here is my problem.
>
> I have 2 harddrives. An 80 gig and a 40 gig. I run my 80 gig as master
> with the OS on it, and my 40 gig is a slave. One day my computer stopped
> working for some odd reason. **I've been having problems since I purchased
> it** It would not load WinXP. I formatted/partitioned and reinstalled my
> OS ((tried WinME and WinXP)) back onto my 80gig drive. For some reason,
> when the computer loaded up after the installation my 40 gig slave drive was
> not showing up on My Computer. I had no access to it.
>
> I reinstalled my OS a couple times, and finally my drive showed up after I
> changed the harddrive cable. However now the 40 gig is showing up as not
> formatted. When I try to access the drive, it says that the drive is not
> formatted, and asks me if I want to format it now. I don't want to do that
> because I don't want to lose any information that I had on the drive.
>
> How can I get my drive back to the state it was in before I ran into these
> problems, without losing any info that was on the drive? I'm lost
>
> Thanks for your time!
>
>
>
I feel your pain. The most important thing you can do right now, is to
try and accept your situation as it is. Next, backup any important data
on that 80 gig. You may or may not be able to access that 40 gig drive,
but for right now, keep your expectations very low as far as data
recovery.

In my repair business, I don't even do a bench-check on a computer unless
the customer has done a back-up of thier important data (files pictures
etc). This may seem a lttle over-the-top as far as making sure my butt
is covered, but I can assure you, that murphys law is very prevalent in
the world of computer repair.

I'm curious, is the computer either a HP or Compaq?

The most important thing you can do right now, is to try and develop some
acceptance of your situation.

After you have had a chance to get things hashed-out in the next few
days, see if there is a upgrade for the BIOS in your computer.
Beyond that, see what you can do to get some type of back-up system in
place, whether cdr, online back-up, GHOST, whatever, so that you can have
peace of mind in the future.

And allways remember, It's not a matter of if, but WHEN, when it comes
to disasters like this.
Wish ya luck

On Fri, 10 Oct 2003 08:04:47 +1300, "RussS" <>
wrote:

>XP? - sounds like you have reinstalled it as Fat32 and the second drive is
>NTFS.
>Explore2fs is a utility for exploring Linux ex2fs partitions from windows.
>The same crowd have one for reading NTFS from FAT - have a look for it.
>

Sounds plausible...Winternals and Sysinternals were the companies that
had those utilities for reading across different formats. Read-only
used to be free also.

Tom

Remembered it - Paragon NTFS for Win98. Very handy for accessing NTFS
partitions from FAT

What operating system did you finally reinstall?? If it was XP then use Computer
Management/disk management to see what is up with the second drive. I have had
situations where other disks were not properly recognized. In disk management view
the disk properties and there may be an option to initialize, import or such. In
W2K/XP drives can be basic or dynamic, and if your drive was dynamic it could be
giving your new install problems as dynamic disk information is stored in the
registry.-- Steve

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329707
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314343

"Heineken" <Happily-> wrote in message
news:cqhhb.267768$ able.rogers.com...
> Here is my problem.
>
> I have 2 harddrives. An 80 gig and a 40 gig. I run my 80 gig as master
> with the OS on it, and my 40 gig is a slave. One day my computer stopped
> working for some odd reason. **I've been having problems since I purchased
> it** It would not load WinXP. I formatted/partitioned and reinstalled my
> OS ((tried WinME and WinXP)) back onto my 80gig drive. For some reason,
> when the computer loaded up after the installation my 40 gig slave drive was
> not showing up on My Computer. I had no access to it.
>
> I reinstalled my OS a couple times, and finally my drive showed up after I
> changed the harddrive cable. However now the 40 gig is showing up as not
> formatted. When I try to access the drive, it says that the drive is not
> formatted, and asks me if I want to format it now. I don't want to do that
> because I don't want to lose any information that I had on the drive.
>
> How can I get my drive back to the state it was in before I ran into these
> problems, without losing any info that was on the drive? I'm lost
>
> Thanks for your time!
>
>