Hard disc access problem

[Sleepless In Jakarta]

I lost my C drive and had to install a new one. I have a large amount of data
on an existing E drive that windows does not see and allow me access. It is
recognised in the BIOS as a slave, and a Western Digital diagnostic program
says it is there and working perfectly. However, in the diagnostic program it
calls the C drive a physical and logical drive but the E drive only as a
physical drive. Am I doing something wrong? Is ther a way to access this
drive?
Thanks for any help

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I lost my C drive and had to install a new one. I have a large amount of
data
on an existing E drive that windows does not see and allow me access. It
is
recognised in the BIOS as a slave, and a Western Digital diagnostic
program
says it is there and working perfectly. However, in the diagnostic program
it
calls the C drive a physical and logical drive but the E drive only as a
physical drive. Am I doing something wrong? Is ther a way to access this
drive?
Thanks for any help

- What does the Disk Manager report (diskmgmr.msc)?
- What does Windows Explorer report?

 

[sgopus]

Sorry I don't have a solution for you, however I do want to comment on this
as being a good example for not using dynamic types on your hd.

 

[sgopus]

I've been reading about a product called discwizard, that supposedly gives
you access to the data on a dynamic type HD, I can't recommend it, as I know
little to nothing about it, but it's an idea if you want to take the time to
research it for your issue.

 

[Sleepless In Jakarta]

Update: I found reference to a similar problem which led me to use rc on 'my
computer'>Computer management> Disk management, then rc on the second drive
and I get three options. Option 1 is to Import Foreign Disk, which I have
tried and it fails. Option 2 is to convert to basic disk, which I don't want
to do as it means formatting the drive and losing the data. The 3rd is
Properties which lists 4 screens. general says the disk is working properly,
Policies and Driver are not helpful, but the third screen says: "Disk 1,
Dynamic, Foreign, MBR with a zero value on the items below.


: (I'm sure you didn't want to read it again!)

 

[Sleepless In Jakarta]

I've been reading about a product called discwizard, that supposedly gives
you access to the data on a dynamic type HD, I can't recommend it, as I know
little to nothing about it, but it's an idea if you want to take the time to
research it for your issue.

____CUT____

Thanks for the info, DiscWizard is a Seagate free download, the same as
MaxBlast for Maxtor. Both are a watered down version of Acronis, but sadly
they don't help with my problem.

 

[Sleepless In Jakarta]

"Sleepless In Jakarta" <Sleepless In (e-mail address removed)>
wrote in message _____CUT_______

- What does the Disk Manager report (diskmgmr.msc)?
- What does Windows Explorer report?

Windows explorer doesn't report anything as it cannot "see" the drive. It
see the A: the C: and D: (DVD) but not the second hard disc which was
previously E:
Device manager in system sees it, but reports it as working.
The Logical Disk Manager, when I ask it to import foreign disks says "The
operation did not complete.Check the system event log for more information on
the error." when you click OK a second message comes up which says "An
unexpected error has occurred. Check the system event log for more
information on the error. Close the disk management console, then restart
disk management, or restart the computer." When I checked the event log, it
just asked me to report it, and gives me a link to a page saying no
information is available. I have restarted disk management and restarted the
computer several time, but the action will not complete.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Windows explorer doesn't report anything as it cannot "see" the drive. It
see the A: the C: and D: (DVD) but not the second hard disc which was
previously E:
Device manager in system sees it, but reports it as working.
The Logical Disk Manager, when I ask it to import foreign disks says "The
operation did not complete.Check the system event log for more information
on
the error." when you click OK a second message comes up which says "An
unexpected error has occurred. Check the system event log for more
information on the error. Close the disk management console, then restart
disk management, or restart the computer." When I checked the event log,
it
just asked me to report it, and gives me a link to a page saying no
information is available. I have restarted disk management and restarted
the
computer several time, but the action will not complete.

You could perform a lossless pseudo-conversion to a basic disk
by doing this:
- Disconnect all disks other than the problem disk.
- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot CD or floppy disk
(www.bootdisk.com).
- Make sure it has a copy of ptedit.exe on it
(ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/)
- Use ptedit to change the partition type of the problem partition
to NTFS. Don't change anything else and make careful notes of
a) Where you made the change
b) What the value was before
c) What you changed it to
- Boot the machine with the problem disk as a slave disk.
As long as you only change the partition type, the change is fully
reversible.

By the way, what's happened to the noble art of backing up your
important data to an independent medium once every week or so?
Does it take a disaster to make you implement such a scheme? If
so then you'd be in excellent company - there are lots of posters
stuck in the same predicament.

 

[Sleepless In Jakarta]

Thank you very much,

I have downloaded the software and read the information and it looks as
though I should be able to recover my data, and the software is on a free 10
day trial.

With regard to backup, the second hard disk was a backup to my C: drive and
visa versa. Obviously that was a flawed method! We live and learn.

I will post back after I have used it to let other know of ease of use,
results etc.

 

[Sleepless In Jakarta]

After a couple of tries I managed to get the job done and I have all of my
data back. Below is what I did:
Disconnected my C drive and made the problem E drive into a master. Booted
the system from the CD made by the method you suggested. I then ran
ptedit32.exe and a new window opened giving me the parameters of the drive. I
clicked on the type box (shown as type 42) and a new window opened with a
list of types. I went down to the first NTFS type (type 7) and selected and
saved. I then exited which powers down the PC. I then reconnected the C drive
as my master and my E drive back to a slave and rebooted the system. On
boot-up the system showed new hardware and requested a reboot to install.
After the reboot, lo and behold my E drive suddenly appeared and all of my
data was intact. And yes, I backed up to DVD straight away.

Thank you Pegasus, if you are ever in Indonesia, contact me and the first
few beers are on me!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

After a couple of tries I managed to get the job done and I have all of my
data back. Below is what I did:
Disconnected my C drive and made the problem E drive into a master. Booted
the system from the CD made by the method you suggested. I then ran
ptedit32.exe and a new window opened giving me the parameters of the
drive. I
clicked on the type box (shown as type 42) and a new window opened with a
list of types. I went down to the first NTFS type (type 7) and selected
and
saved. I then exited which powers down the PC. I then reconnected the C
drive
as my master and my E drive back to a slave and rebooted the system. On
boot-up the system showed new hardware and requested a reboot to install.
After the reboot, lo and behold my E drive suddenly appeared and all of my
data was intact. And yes, I backed up to DVD straight away.

Thank you Pegasus, if you are ever in Indonesia, contact me and the first
few beers are on me!

Thanks for the feedback. I now wonder if you ever converted
your disk to dynamic or if this is some glitch.

I recently moved from Australia to Europe and I am unlikely
to go back to Australia. Still, your offer of a few beers is
appreciated.

 

[Sleepless In Jakarta]

:

Thanks for the feedback. I now wonder if you ever converted
your disk to dynamic or if this is some glitch.

I recently moved from Australia to Europe and I am unlikely
to go back to Australia. Still, your offer of a few beers is
appreciated.

Left that corner of the world 6 years ago to get away from the cold! If the
disk was ever converted to Dynamic then I don't know how. I bought it new,
set it up as a slave, formatted and used it for data storage. So unless it
was formatted to a dynamic drive in the first place by windows xppro, then it
must be a glitch.

I raised a few glasses of beer in your honour tonight, thanks again.

 

[Bill in Co.]

"Sleepless In Jakarta" <[email protected]>
wrote
in message news[email protected]...

Thanks for the feedback. I now wonder if you ever converted
your disk to dynamic or if this is some glitch.

I recently moved from Australia to Europe and I am unlikely
to go back to Australia.

Why? From what I've heard, AU (or perhaps bette yet, NZ), sounds almost
idyllic, and crime free, to boot!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Why? From what I've heard, AU (or perhaps bette yet, NZ), sounds almost
idyllic, and crime free, to boot!

Melbourne recently had its gang wars that cost the lives of some
34 criminals. Good riddance but hardly a crime free country!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_gangland_killings

 

[Bill in Co.]

Melbourne recently had its gang wars that cost the lives of some
34 criminals. Good riddance but hardly a crime free country!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne_gangland_killings

Geeesh, and here, all along, I thought hand guns were banned over there.
Or maybe only in NZ. I think it's true in Canada. So I would expect the
gang violence to be a LOT less than over here, where just about anybody can
have a hand gun.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Geeesh, and here, all along, I thought hand guns were banned over there.
Or maybe only in NZ. I think it's true in Canada. So I would expect
the gang violence to be a LOT less than over here, where just about
anybody can have a hand gun.

Guns ARE banned in Australia. This curbs the capacity of loonies
to go on a killing spree. The ban does not affect the underworld, it
never will and it was not intended to.