[kiriyama]

hi all,

on saturday i went out to buy a new monitor, came back and booted uyp new PC with monitor all wired up.

FYI: im on windows XP professional if it helps...

it got to the Windows XP loading screen, then the screen went blank, rebooted and then said it couldnt find the hard drive.

anyways i have 2 hard drives:

c:\ <<used for program files / installations (only 20gb IDE HDD)
d:\ << used for big installtions, music folders etc (IDE 120gb hard drive) the important one!


i wasnt bothered about losing the data on C drive as its all mainly little downloads, takes not really much time to sort it all out again etc

anyways in order to stop myself from making any error i took my D drive out so i didnt lose any of my important data, i then proceeded to format and reinstall XP pro on C drive.

i got it all up and running again, unfortunately i am running on BT broadband and i cant install Norton b4 hand as it conflicts with the BT software and in turn i got a small virus therefore i didnt plug my hard drive in until i sorted this virus out. i then plugged it all up, and when i dbl click on the drive (which is now allocated as F:\) i get a message saying "the disk in drive F is not formatted, do you wish to do it now?" and the Yes or No buttons...


i've been told a few things to solve this problem:

1. force a filing system onto it via windows xp disk (dont know how to do that)

2. format my C:\ drive again but have D:\ in aswell while im redoing it (but NOT formatting D:\ )

3. try installing XP onto D:\ but choose not to format the drive (which i dont think is possible as that option only appears when you have an exsisting O/S on the hard drive doesnt it? )


anyways im going to fix it one way or the other, if i cant i shall spend my days huddled up in the corner of my room clutching @ the HDD =/ lol

thanks in advance,

Ste

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I think it is shear chance that this problem happened when you first tried the new monitor.

Until you get the OS installation sorted out it's best that the 120GB drive not be connected. Simply unplug the ribbon cable that goes to it. Make sure that the end of the ribbon cable is plugged into the 20GB drive (not at the middle connector).

Try to reinstall XP again. It the install program complains that there is no hard drive detected then the drive is probably toast. Otherwise proceed with the installation. Only when XP is up and running attach the second hard drive. XP should see the newer drive as volume D: .

If the drive has died you could either make a new 20GB primary partition on the 120GB drive, but you would need a working desktop and software such as Partition Magic to avoid deleting all your data files. Otherwise you could back up all your data onto DVDs and use XP (Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc) to remove thae old partition and add 2 new partitions. Be sure to set the 20GB partition as 'active'.

[WinCrazy]

I think it is shear chance that this problem happened when you first tried the new monitor.

Until you get the OS installation sorted out it's best that the 120GB drive not be connected. Simply unplug the ribbon cable that goes to it. Make sure that the end of the ribbon cable is plugged into the 20GB drive (not at the middle connector).

Try to reinstall XP again. It the install program complains that there is no hard drive detected then the drive is probably toast. Otherwise proceed with the installation. Only when XP is up and running attach the second hard drive. XP should see the newer drive as volume D: .

If the drive has died you could either make a new 20GB primary partition on the 120GB drive, but you would need a working desktop and software such as Partition Magic to avoid deleting all your data files. Otherwise you could back up all your data onto DVDs and use XP (Start > Run > diskmgmt.msc) to remove thae old partition and add 2 new partitions. Be sure to set the 20GB partition as 'active'.

[kiriyama]

thanks alot for your reply,

i am currently on my 20GB hard drive (i have 2, as stated above, the 120 and the 20)

i seem to have 3 hard drives now, C:, D: and E: - D and E are the same drive (together their space in diskmgmt.msc adds up to the 120gb)

the problem is, in diskmgmt.msc under "File System" c:\ has NTFS but the other drive doesnt say anything =/

here is a screenshot of my diskmgmt.msc:

[WinCrazy]

Partitions can't spontaneously subdivide. Are you saying there is a new partition on the 120GB drive that wasn't there before ?!! Are there any files in it ?

Are all your files still somewhere on D: or E: ?

[kiriyama]

well i found somethin really weird out lastnight i used a program called DIY data recovery diskpatch 2.1

it found 3 partitions...

NTFS one - 111gb (my hard drive) but had error....
31gb - repairable
80gb - repairable

i could have fixed it last night had i had a CD key for this dos program