[mrcuevas]

so i've scoured the forums for a similar situation, i've searched "reconnecting hard drive," "reconnect slave drive after reformatting," "hard drive reconnect reinstall XP," and many other variations/combinations, but have not been able to find anything similar to my situation. that being said, i sincerely hope i'm not reposting something that's already been discussed. i apologize if it has. anyway, here goes:

i've google-ed my situation, and turns out someone else had gone through the same exact situation. for convenience, i'll just copy/paste what (s)he said here, because i couldn't have explained it better myself:

"Ok so.....
Have 2 hard drives and was bogged down with loads of programs didnt use and
computer was running really slow. So decided to format- but first copied all
my camera pics and any files i needed on to 2nd HD.

Formated my C:\ drive (Master) and tried to install XP - wouldn't let me
install XP unless I formatted my F:\ drive (Slave). So turned off and
disconnected slave (both cables).

Formatted C:\ drive and installed XP - now running nice and smooth
again....however!!! Upon connecting my Slave drive (exactly as it was
before!) XP won't allow me to access it!

It appears as F:\ in Explore but when I try to access it, it says "The disk
in drive F is not formatted. Do you want to format? Yes or No"
Well of course I dont want to format it, I put all my files on there so they
wouldnt be lost!!!!

Can anyone please help?? I'm stumped and have a sore head from banging it
against the wall.
Many Thanks
Deej
P.s. Sorry its a bit long winded but wanted to give the full picture. Oh
have updated to SP2 and am up to date on updates."

"Deej" and i did the same exact thing, thinking that we could disconnect our storage internal drives (both cables) reformat/reinstall XP on our master drive, and then access our storage drives again by simply reconnecting the power and IDE ribbon cable. doesn't it make sense that the storage drive would already be formatted since it was working fine before reformatting the master drive?

here's the url to Deej's post:
http://forum.soft32....pict222802.html

someone replied to Deej, but i don't have a spare IDE cable lying around. one is on its way, however. is that person's reply to Deej all i need to do, or is there another way to re-access my slave drive?

any help/suggestions would be very much appreciated. THANK YOU!!! =)

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Tough one. I've never experienced this before and I've done a ton of installs!

I researched this problem on goole a bit and it appears to be more common than I realized. There weren't too many "solved" posts that I could find. However, I did find one that you might try. Here's a snip-it of the post...

Here's what happened. I tried to follow Ariejiil's advice, reinserted power and IDE cables. I also added to clean the inside. Rebooted the PC. BUT... It still didn't detected the slave drive.
Rebooted again and entered the BIOS setup (a bit desperate) Take note that my BIOS can detect the slave drive. I tried to fiddle and click "Manual" and clicked detect drive. It went back to "auto". saved CMOS and exited. (Please NOTE that I already went into BIOS earlier and clicked Auto detect and it can detect the slave drive but after opening the pc, system still can't detect it)

Now upon restart, the Slave drive appeared with all data intact with healthy status.
I didn't really know what made it go back. two things I did;
1. Reinserted power and IDE cables as per advice; cleaned my pc from dust
2. Fiddled with the BIOS set-up.

Thanks to you guys. hope can be of help to others also.

Tony

It appears that even though the bios could already see the drive while Windows couldn't, the OP still went into bios and switched the hard drive Auto detect to Manual. He states the Auto detect switched back to Auto after he set it to Manual. He then saved and exited bios, and restarted the machine. In his case, the drive reappeared in Windows. Sheesh... I guess you could have just gleened what I wrote from the above!

Anyways, I hope you get lucky! I will try to research this a little more... it's quite interesting! Although, I imagine it's a pain in the butt for you!

Good luck!

[makai]

Tough one. I've never experienced this before and I've done a ton of installs!

I researched this problem on goole a bit and it appears to be more common than I realized. There weren't too many "solved" posts that I could find. However, I did find one that you might try. Here's a snip-it of the post...

Here's what happened. I tried to follow Ariejiil's advice, reinserted power and IDE cables. I also added to clean the inside. Rebooted the PC. BUT... It still didn't detected the slave drive.
Rebooted again and entered the BIOS setup (a bit desperate) Take note that my BIOS can detect the slave drive. I tried to fiddle and click "Manual" and clicked detect drive. It went back to "auto". saved CMOS and exited. (Please NOTE that I already went into BIOS earlier and clicked Auto detect and it can detect the slave drive but after opening the pc, system still can't detect it)

Now upon restart, the Slave drive appeared with all data intact with healthy status.
I didn't really know what made it go back. two things I did;
1. Reinserted power and IDE cables as per advice; cleaned my pc from dust
2. Fiddled with the BIOS set-up.

Thanks to you guys. hope can be of help to others also.

Tony

It appears that even though the bios could already see the drive while Windows couldn't, the OP still went into bios and switched the hard drive Auto detect to Manual. He states the Auto detect switched back to Auto after he set it to Manual. He then saved and exited bios, and restarted the machine. In his case, the drive reappeared in Windows. Sheesh... I guess you could have just gleened what I wrote from the above!

Anyways, I hope you get lucky! I will try to research this a little more... it's quite interesting! Although, I imagine it's a pain in the butt for you!

Good luck!

[mrcuevas]

first off, thanks for replying so quickly.

so i tried following those directions. i got into my bios, and sure enough, bios recognizes my slave drive just fine. my question is where do i go to switch it from auto to manual? i have "main," "advanced," "security," "power," "boot" and "exit" along the top.

the closest i've gotten was choosing advanced --> IDE configuration --> primary IDE slave. doing this takes me to a screen where "auto" is highlighted, and if i hit enter, this window pops up:

http://img.photobuck.../1211082150.jpg

as you can see, the manual option is not there. is there something wrong, or am i just in the wrong part of the bios?

thank you all again...

Attached Thumbnails

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[123Runner]

I think what is being said is that the poster changed it from auto detect to manual (manual would allow him to manually put the drive sectors, etc in). I suspect from the screen shot that you would want "user".

I would probably change it to user (save and exit), then change back to auto (save and exit) and then reboot.

That what it sounds like the 1 poster did.

[makai]

I think it wouldn't matter if you selected none or user. Either way, it will make the bios think something about the slave drive has changed, so when you select auto again, the bios will redetect it. Redection is what we're aiming for.

By the way, the IDE cable you're using on this drive is an 80 pin cable, correct?

Edited by makai, 12 December 2008 - 05:14 PM.

[mrcuevas]

123runner,

so i tried your suggestion of changing the type from auto, to user... saving and exiting... then restarting to go back into bios... and changed it from user back to auto... and then saved changes. bios recognizes it, but windows still doesn't.

makai,

i'm not exactly sure how to find out, but since the bios says "80 conductor" for the type of cable detected, then i'm assuming that, yes, i'm using an 80-pin cable. a friend is sending me a spare one in the mail, so i'm hoping that will solve the problem unless another idea/suggestion comes my way sooner.

thanks again, guys.

[makai]

This is indeed a very strange problem that I've never experienced. I'll have to do a lot more research into this. For all I know, it may be something simple, but then again, the answer is always simple once you know it!. I'll look around more and get back... in the meantime, if you succeed in finding the solution, please post back so it can help anyone else experiencing this. Thanks!

makai

[mrcuevas]

will do. i'm fiddling around with it right now and researching what all these different settings in the bios do. i'll keep updating this thread if i find anything interesting...

[mrcuevas]

hmmmmmm... should i just use this?

http://www.stellarin...-windows-nt.htm

i'm just scared that it might accidentally delete everything. i have about 150-160gb of music and movies, and i'd be really, really, REALLY peeved if i lost any of it. although it says it's a "Non destructive and read-only utility...," i'm still a little weary about using it.

thoughts? comments? reviews?

[makai]

At this point in time, I would advise against using any data recovery software unless you know how to use it and you know it will succeed. There are still avenues to research.

If your data is important to you, what I would do is try to back it up before going any further. If you have a friend who has a USB Harddrive enclosure you could install your harddrive into the enclosure to see if Windows can read it. See if it can be read on your computer, or your friends. If so, burn your data to DVD or CDs.

AFTER YOU VERIFY YOUR DATA IS SAFE, then you can play with data recovery programs, or... you can format the drive with it in your computer and not worry about why this problem even showed up!

[mrcuevas]

i'm new to the concept of what exactly a usb enclosure does. what good is using one if the hard drive is supposedly not formatted, according to my newly-installed xp? will putting it into an enclosure somehow make it formatted for my computer to somehow read again?

Edited by mrcuevas, 14 December 2008 - 02:47 PM.

[123Runner]

I think the idea here is to take a look at it on another computer. The easiest way is an enclosure. It is an external enclosure that the drive goes in to. It can then be attached to in any computer.
If it works, then the issue is with your computer and not the drive.

You could also attach it as a slave to another desktop, but the USB enclosure option is easiest.

[makai]

i'm new to the concept of what exactly a usb enclosure does. what good is using one if the hard drive is supposedly not formatted, according to my newly-installed xp? will putting it into an enclosure somehow make it formatted?

The hard drive is "supposedly not formatted" only according to your comuter. Just because your computer doesn't think it's formatted, doesn't mean it's not. There is currently a problem with your computer not being able to recognize a disk it previously did.

By using an enclosure, you can see if another computer will recognize the disk. If it does, then you can be assured that it is formatted and the problem lies with your computer. Also, by using the enclosure, you can then move your data to the other computer to back it up until you solve the problems with this computer. The enclosure will not "somehow make it formatted". We actually believe the disk is already formatted, but your computer just doesn't recognize it. We need to test it in another computer. Putting the disk into an enclosure will not change anything about it, nor will it do anything to it except allow you to look at it on another computer.

Sorry this all sounds repetitive, but the gist of it is... we need to see if another computer can recognize the disk as being formatted. Also, hopefully back up your data if it is readable.

[mrcuevas]

SUCCESS!

well not really. i finally found a friend who had an enclosure that he wasn't using at the moment. not only did it work on his macbook, but it also works on my troubled pc.

so now that i know that the hard drive itself doesn't have any issues, what should my next step be? should i try that thing with the spare IDE cable? is there something i can do in the bios?

someone please let me know if/when you've got the chance.

many thanks!

-rommel

[123Runner]

As I recall the drive in question was hooked as a slave in your computer. I would say that since the USB enclosure worked, then I would venture a guess that the problem is with the ribbon cable being bad, or poorly seated.
I would try the new cable.

Please let us know.