Windows does not detect secondary hard drive

[Trevor]

I recently installed a new wide-screen monitor and graphics card. There were
however conflicts and as a result, I got the blue error screen and re-boot
issues advising of corrupted files. I have since managed to re-install XP.
The problem is: Bios and Device Manager detect the secondary drive - My
Computer shows it without any information [size, etc] and I cannot open it.
Comes up that the disk is not formatted ... There are sensitive files on the
disk - that Demo File Recovery software detects - but I can't get to them and
don't dare format until they are retrieved. Disk Management does not show any
partitions - If I re-partition the drive to the original NTFS WITHOUT
FORMATTING - will the data be lost/overwritten/deleted ? Or will the file
system recreate itself and allow access to the files ?

 

[DL]

You will lose all data if you repartition it.

 

[smlunatick]

I recently installed a new wide-screen monitor and graphics card. There were
however conflicts and as a result, I got the blue error screen and re-boot
issues advising of corrupted files. I have since managed to re-install XP..
The problem is: Bios and Device Manager detect the secondary drive - My
Computer shows it without any information [size, etc] and I cannot open it.
Comes up that the disk is not formatted ... There are sensitive files on the
disk - that Demo File Recovery software detects - but I can't get to themand
don't dare format until they are retrieved. Disk Management does not showany
partitions - If I re-partition the drive to the original NTFS WITHOUT
FORMATTING - will the data be lost/overwritten/deleted ? Or will the file
system recreate itself and allow access to the files ?

No, do not re-partition / re-format. You must recover before you do
anything. You can locate other utilties to recovery, some are free or
open source.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk