Second Hard Drive Lost After Reinstall

[Brian Thorn]

Hi all...

I've been reading through older messages in this group, but I can't
find an answer to this particular problem.

My brother's computer has two hard drives, a 200 gig and an old 30 gig
he was using as backup storage. He had to reinstall Windows XP after a
virus/worm infestation (after mistakenly turning off his Norton
firewall for a couple of days.)

Prior to reinstalling, Windows XP booted from the 200 gig, which had
two partitions on it. The 30 gig drive was working normally.

When reinstalling, he made the 200 gig one big partition but now the
30 gig does not appear in My Computer. Disk Management sees it, but
the only option not ghosted out is Delete Partition. Both drives were
and are formatted in NTFS.

Is there any way to make Windows XP use this harddrive without losing
the data on it?

Any help or pointers will be appreciated.

Brian

 

[Keith]

Hi all...

I've been reading through older messages in this group, but I can't
find an answer to this particular problem.

My brother's computer has two hard drives, a 200 gig and an old 30 gig
he was using as backup storage. He had to reinstall Windows XP after a
virus/worm infestation (after mistakenly turning off his Norton
firewall for a couple of days.)

Prior to reinstalling, Windows XP booted from the 200 gig, which had
two partitions on it. The 30 gig drive was working normally.

When reinstalling, he made the 200 gig one big partition but now the
30 gig does not appear in My Computer. Disk Management sees it, but
the only option not ghosted out is Delete Partition. Both drives were
and are formatted in NTFS.

Is there any way to make Windows XP use this harddrive without losing
the data on it?

Any help or pointers will be appreciated.

Brian

Has the 30GB drive been assigned a drive letter? . If not assign it thru
disk management

 

[NoNoBadDog!]

You may also need to Initialize the drive once a letter has been assigned.

Bobby

 

[Art]

Has the 30GB drive been assigned a drive letter? . If not assign it thru
disk management

Brian:
As you pointed out, all the options in Disk Management are grayed out save
the one for "Delete Partition", so obviously you can't assign a drive
letter. It's an anomaly in XP that I and other users have also encountered.
First of all, I'm assuming that the drive in question is jumpered correctly
and the IDE cable connection is properly seated. I'm also assuming that your
newly partitioned boot drive is working properly. Assuming that this is so,
the only satisfactory workaround I've found is the following...
1. Power down the computer.
2. After checking that your jumper setting and cable connections (both to
the IDE controller on the motherboard and the drive as well) are as they
should be, disconnect the cable from the drive.
3. Boot the computer.
4. Shut down the computer and reconnect the drive.
5. Boot up again. Hopefully the drive should be recognized by the system and
a drive letter assigned to it. If not, check again in Disk Management and
determine what options, if any, are available.

Good luck.
Art

 

[Brian Thorn]

As you pointed out, all the options in Disk Management are grayed out save
the one for "Delete Partition", so obviously you can't assign a drive
letter. It's an anomaly in XP that I and other users have also encountered.
First of all, I'm assuming that the drive in question is jumpered correctly
and the IDE cable connection is properly seated. I'm also assuming that your
newly partitioned boot drive is working properly. Assuming that this is so,
the only satisfactory workaround I've found is the following...
1. Power down the computer.
2. After checking that your jumper setting and cable connections (both to
the IDE controller on the motherboard and the drive as well) are as they
should be, disconnect the cable from the drive.
3. Boot the computer.
4. Shut down the computer and reconnect the drive.
5. Boot up again. Hopefully the drive should be recognized by the system and
a drive letter assigned to it. If not, check again in Disk Management and
determine what options, if any, are available.

No joy.

Thanks for the help. I guess I'll tell him to get Partition Magic and
try that.

Brian