Drive Enclosure Didn't Work!

[Guest]

My rig was xp pro. 160 gb hitachi deskstar. Mobo face planted. Time for
new rig. New mobo, cpu, ram etc etc...Same 160 gb hdd. Tried to boot from
160. No dice. Need new windows install. Buy windows xp home full retail.
Try to install xp home on 20 gb hdd because valuable data on 160 gb hdd =
don't want to format. Bios on crappy mobo says both hdd's = 7.6 gb. Wrong.
During win xp home installation unpartitioned space listed as 7303 mb.
Wrong. Replace crappy mobo with good mobo. New Bios says both hdd's at
right size. Leave jumpers off and install windows xp home on 20 gb hdd. No
problem. Plug in 160 gb hdd. Bios says right size, name. Not listed in My
Computer. Run Disk Management. See 160 gb hdd. Right click. Initialize.
Becomes basic drive. Trying to access drive brings up prompt asking to
format. Do not want to format 160gb hdd because it contains valuable
information. Purchase hdd enclosure. Assemble with 160 gb hdd. Plug in.
Same result. Prompt to format drive. Do not want to format.

I know i sound like a robot but it's a long story. Any ideas on how to get
my files off this drive?? I tried to install xp home at one point (during
the 7.6 gb hdd/crappy mobo stage) but it didn't work right and was not
formatted. I have not formatted this drive yet, have actually done
everything possible to avoid that.

HELP!

THANK YOU!

(e-mail address removed)

 

[Ghostrider]

My rig was xp pro. 160 gb hitachi deskstar. Mobo face planted. Time for
new rig. New mobo, cpu, ram etc etc...Same 160 gb hdd. Tried to boot from
160. No dice. Need new windows install. Buy windows xp home full retail.
Try to install xp home on 20 gb hdd because valuable data on 160 gb hdd =
don't want to format. Bios on crappy mobo says both hdd's = 7.6 gb. Wrong.
During win xp home installation unpartitioned space listed as 7303 mb.
Wrong. Replace crappy mobo with good mobo. New Bios says both hdd's at
right size. Leave jumpers off and install windows xp home on 20 gb hdd. No
problem. Plug in 160 gb hdd. Bios says right size, name. Not listed in My
Computer. Run Disk Management. See 160 gb hdd. Right click. Initialize.
Becomes basic drive. Trying to access drive brings up prompt asking to
format. Do not want to format 160gb hdd because it contains valuable
information. Purchase hdd enclosure. Assemble with 160 gb hdd. Plug in.
Same result. Prompt to format drive. Do not want to format.

I know i sound like a robot but it's a long story. Any ideas on how to get
my files off this drive?? I tried to install xp home at one point (during
the 7.6 gb hdd/crappy mobo stage) but it didn't work right and was not
formatted. I have not formatted this drive yet, have actually done
everything possible to avoid that.

There may be an utility that is available to recover the
160 GB hard drive after its re-initialization to a basic
drive via Disk Management but also be prepared to use a
professional disk recovery outfit.