Problem with Secondary HD

Unknown

Hi all,
I recently installed a second hard drive and partitioned it as D:, E:, and F: and moved most of My music and other documents to the D: partition.

With the old H Drive C: now just storing programs and a virus I think ... I decided to restore it to factory settings via a recovery disk. Before doing this I disconnected the new hard drive.

After I successfully restored My computer to factory settings I then reconnected My new partitioned drive but.............

The newer drive, with all My data on it, is showing up as one F: and when I try to explore it , it tells Me it is not formatted and then gives Me the option to format.

1: I ran Seatools, which was the installation/partitioning software, to no avail - it was of no use with renaming/recognising the partition(s)
2: I took it to a friends Pc, same problem, came up in 'My computer' as F:
3: We ran 'CHKDSK' through Dos - it said there is one or more irrecoverable files
4: I ran a data recovery application which has shown Me that all My music is still on the HD, it can see it.

What I have done so far is the extent of My knowledge folks, am I missing something? Another thread mentioned XP needs to be patched .... I don't know if SP1 d/loaded itself with the other updates and I can't find it anywhere on t'internet. It gives Me the option to d/load SP2 but I hear this is bad news ... is it?

This data recovery application is a demo so, before I part with the funds, any other ideas? other free software, other ideas or probably a blatant answer.

Thanks in advance
Liam
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kryyst

Sp1 is on the website if you go to the MS updates page choose custom install and SP1 will be there. I take it this drive is larger then 140mb's otherwise you've got other problems then the drive size going on. Also I know Wester Digital has a patch with it's drive tools that has to be put onto the OS for it to recognize larger drives. Seagate probably has the same. But both of those patches have to be put on after SP1.

Also check out this link
TestDisk http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

Hawk

Liam, I had a HD that I couldn't access. Every time I tried to access it I got the dredded (this drive is not formatted, do you want to format.) After searching I found this free program and it repaired and recovered the drive.-- Unstoppable Copier ...... Recovers files from disks with physical damage. Allows you to copy files from disks with problems such as bad sectors, scratches or that just give errors when reading data. The program will attempt to recover every readable piece of a file and put the pieces together. Using this method most types of files can be made useable even if some parts were not recoverable in the end. You can also use it for copying and moving files over easily. It's in the utilities section. If testdisk doesn't fix it, you might want to try this.

airoh69

If you had the hd on a controller (like Promise...) and tried to put it on another controller you may have this problem.

HalOfBorg

I've had no major troubles with SP2 - and especially on a fresh install / recovery disk.

imported_oldtimer

This is not a Windows problem....It's a hardware problem no matter what the OS.
Messing with the motherborad was probably what removed your partitions.
Are the files still on the old one till you could test this new one ?
Thats how i did it.

SSR_06

i think most manufaturers have some kind of drive unlocker for drives bigger than 140GB. i know maxtor has it on their maxblast cd.

imported_oldtimer

SSR_06 wrote:

i think most manufaturers have some kind of drive unlocker for drives bigger than 140GB. i know maxtor has it on their maxblast cd.

:horn: :drinkup:
This was a big mistake too.
After I successfully restored My computer to factory settings I then reconnected My new partitioned drive but.............
No wonder maybe.
:kaka:

kryyst

What are you talking about? Windows Sp1 or 2 don't handle drives over 140 without being patched. It's not a mobo issue this is purely a windows issue. The drive is fine windows just isn't recognizing it.

Zuntar

oldtimer wrote:

This is not a Windows problem....It's a hardware problem no matter what the OS.
Messing with the motherborad was probably what removed your partitions.
Are the files still on the old one till you could test this new one ?
Thats how i did it.

wrong old timer, Kryyst is right! It is a software issue w/ win xp there are fixes for it, checking now............


Edit: check this out see if it helps! old thread

imported_oldtimer

wrote:

I may be wrong so i'll just watch the results.I don't really have a clue after 40 gb hd's.
But just remember a new PC with a 160 gb has no OS yet and can't patch anything till it's online.So i was addressing that issue.
MBD Being able to read it and install Windows.

kryyst

But his system is up and running on his smaller primary drive it's not correctly reading the 2nd bigger drive. The 2nd drive is being detected and read by the bios. So this is a windows issue which is a result of windows not playing nicely with drives bigger then 140gb.

HalOfBorg

I HAVE had HDs show correctly in the BIOS screens - but be unusable in Windows - of course this was on very old machines. EDO memory and such. Same thing for CDROMS.

kryyst

oldtimer wrote:

I may be wrong so i'll just watch the results.I don't really have a clue after 40 gb hd's.
But just remember a new PC with a 160 gb has no OS yet and can't patch anything till it's online.So i was addressing that issue.
MBD Being able to read it and install Windows.

They have drive tools for just that reason. But they format the drive entirely and add a boot patch to it that windows picks up and uses.