Second hard drive needs formatting after XP reload

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Guest

Due to an unknown problem with my bootable hard drive, I had to reinstall XP.

Since then, when I try and access my second hard drive - which worked
perfectly before the reinstall - I know receive this message:

The disk in drive F is not formatted.

This has all of my video edited files on it and I'd hate to think I need to
reformat to get this working again.

Can anyone please help?

It is a Seagate 400Gig drive

Cheers and fingers corssed

Roy
 
Roy said:
Due to an unknown problem with my bootable hard drive, I had to reinstall
XP.

Since then, when I try and access my second hard drive - which worked
perfectly before the reinstall - I know receive this message:

The disk in drive F is not formatted.

This has all of my video edited files on it and I'd hate to think I need
to
reformat to get this working again.

Can anyone please help?

It is a Seagate 400Gig drive

Cheers and fingers corssed

Roy
Click to expand...


Roy:
There are a number of things to try...

1. We'll assume your secondary HD is non-defective since it was working just
fine prior to your reinstall of the OS on your primary boot hard drive. But
it still may be a good idea to check it out with a HD diagnostic that you
can download from Seagate's site after you've tried the following...

2. When you say you get the message about the drive being unformatted,
you're referring to that message in Disk Management? And in DM there's no
drive letter assignment to that HD and you're unable to assign one? Tell us
precisely what you see in DM re that drive.

3. Is there any possibility that when you reinstalled XP you inadvertently
deleted the Seagate's partition and/or reformatted that drive?

4. After powering down your machine, disconnect the Seagate - both data &
power cable connectors - and boot with only your primary HD connected. Then
power down and reconnect the Seagate - making sure, of course, that it's
correctly connected & jumpered. (I'm assuming this is a PATA HD although you
didn't say). If still not detected by the system, again access DM to see
what you can see.
Anna
 
Try this:

Click Start.
Click Control Panel.
Click Performance and Maintenance.
Click Administrative Tools.
Double click Computer Management.
Expand Storage.
Click on Disk mangement.

There is information on your volumes in the right side windows. What is
being shown for your secondary h/d?

Paul Shafer, MCDST
 
Due to an unknown problem with my bootable hard drive, I had to reinstall XP.

Since then, when I try and access my second hard drive - which worked
perfectly before the reinstall - I know receive this message:

The disk in drive F is not formatted.

This has all of my video edited files on it and I'd hate to think I need to
reformat to get this working again.

Can anyone please help?

It is a Seagate 400Gig drive

Cheers and fingers corssed

Roy
Click to expand...


My best suggestion would be, take it out. Get yourself either
1. an external hard drive enclosure with a usb (2.0) compatible
cable/connector.
You won't need to reinstall it. I had similar problems until I made
my 2nd hdd external. it's a super easy setup.
2. more cheaply than the external hard drive is to simply get a ide /
usb adapter cable (roughly 1/3 the cost of the external hard drive
enclosure. The down side is it isn't cooled, but that can be fixed by
putting a table fan next to the back side.
the adapter cable shouldn't cost more than $15 including shipping, and
you can get either appliance on Tiger Direct, or on Pricewatch.com


Not being a tekkie, unless your 2nd hard drive simply died, I am
GUESSING that the configuration for the 2nd hdd was in the c drive.
When the c drive went belly up, you lost the configuration for the D
drive (your 2nd hdd).

Making it external is
1. smarter
2. an easy fix
3. just plain a good thing to do.

Another advantage to making the 2nd hdd external is that you can THEN
have MULTIPLE "2nd hard drives". I have 2 "2nd hard drives." And with
usb, you can hook up as many simultaneously as you like.

imagine having drive D, drive E, drive F, drive G, drive H...
all dedicated to their own purposes.


Good luck!

Tallahassee
 
Talahassee said:
Not being a tekkie, unless your 2nd hard drive simply died, I am
GUESSING that the configuration for the 2nd hdd was in the c drive.
When the c drive went belly up, you lost the configuration for the D
drive (your 2nd hdd).
Click to expand...

Interesting theory, but not one that is based in the real world. Since you
say you are not "a tekkie", perhaps you should consider not giving
technical advice.

If you want to understand what has happened to the OP's drive, then read
Anna's questions and the OP's answers if he ever comes back with them.

Malke
 
External USB drives are slower than if the same physical drive
was used inside the PC cabinet. Also, Cheap/Inexpensive USB
external cases most times do not have adequate cooling. You'll
find that the drive works in a much higher temp environment than
if used in a "Tower" case. Finally, most drives have temp sensors
that cannot be read if used via a USB connection. Externals are
handy for backups - but they aren't a "Global" solution. Better to
consider External SATA or eSATA for performance/options.
 
Roy said:
Due to an unknown problem with my bootable hard drive, I had to
reinstall XP.

Since then, when I try and access my second hard drive - which worked
perfectly before the reinstall - I know receive this message:

The disk in drive F is not formatted.

This has all of my video edited files on it and I'd hate to think I
need to reformat to get this working again.

Can anyone please help?

It is a Seagate 400Gig drive
Click to expand...

Did you install SP2? Native XP can't, as I recall, handle drives that big.
 
Paulibus

It is the F Drive and show (F:) 372.60 BG Healthy (Active)

It also shows up OK during boot-up when the screen is still in the DOS mode

Hopefully my further answers to Anna (following this reply) will also help

Cheers

Roy
 
Anna

My answer back to Paulibus answers your first question.

As far as I know, I didn't touch the F Drive (2nd HDD).

It is a SATA drive - and you will see above that it is being detected by the
system - it's just not working!

By the way and to answer someone else's question, I have installed SP2 and
all of the latest updates.

Any other suggestions GRATEFULLY received.

Roy
 
Paulibus

Something else I've just noticed when in Computer management

Whereas the C HDD is showing NTFS under File System, there is nothing in
this field for the F HDD

Roy
 
Roy said:
Anna

My answer back to Paulibus answers your first question.

As far as I know, I didn't touch the F Drive (2nd HDD).

It is a SATA drive - and you will see above that it is being detected by
the
system - it's just not working!

By the way and to answer someone else's question, I have installed SP2 and
all of the latest updates.

Any other suggestions GRATEFULLY received.

Roy
Click to expand...


(Roy later adds)...
Roy said:
My answer back to Paulibus answers your first question.

As far as I know, I didn't touch the F Drive (2nd HDD).

It is a SATA drive - and you will see above that it is being detected by
the
system - it's just not working!

By the way and to answer someone else's question, I have installed SP2 and
all of the latest updates.

Any other suggestions GRATEFULLY received.

Roy
Click to expand...


(And still later he adds...)
Something else I've just noticed when in Computer management

Whereas the C HDD is showing NTFS under File System, there is nothing in
this field for the F HDD

Roy


Roy:
Now that you mention that the problem HD is a SATA HD, any possibility that
a SATA driver issue is involved since you did a fresh install of the XP OS?

Do I understand you to say that the HD is listed in Disk Management and has
been assigned a F: drive letter, but no File System is shown - it's blank?
Is its Status shown as "Healthy" and its Capacity is correctly indicated?
And is its Type shown as "Basic"?

Assuming the drive is listed in DM -- if you right-click on its listing
under the Volume tab, is Open and/or Explore listed as menu items. If so,
can you click on each?
Anna
 
Anna

First of all, it's a pity that this workgroup tool will not allow you to
paste a screen scrape of exactly the configuration. It'd be a lot easier to
show the settings.

To answer your first question about the driver. When I click on Device
Manager, the same driver is shown for the F HDD Seagate drive as the working
C HDD Maxtor drive. It is a MS driver. A message in each of their
Properties says they are both working correctly.

I can't remember loading a separate driver when I originally installed the
drive when new. And I can't find a CD now.

The following settings are shown:
Volume = (F:)
Layout = Partition
Type = Basic
File System = (this is blank)
Status = Healthy (Active)
Capacity = 372.60GB
Free Space = 372.60GB
% Free = 100%
Fault Tolerance = No
Overhead = 0%

these settings are very similar to the bootable C drive with the differences
being the capacity and the Status shows Healthy (System) and the File System
shows NTFS.

When I right click on the F drive under 'Volume' the File system on the
General tab shows as RAW. The C drive shows (as you would expect) NTFS.

As suggested, when I right click on the F drive under 'Volume', Open and
Explore are there - but the same error message saying the disk in drife F is
not formatted appears. C works fine.

Thanks for the perseverence - I hope I've answered your questions

Roy
 
Roy said:
Anna

First of all, it's a pity that this workgroup tool will not allow you to
paste a screen scrape of exactly the configuration. It'd be a lot easier
to
show the settings.

To answer your first question about the driver. When I click on Device
Manager, the same driver is shown for the F HDD Seagate drive as the
working
C HDD Maxtor drive. It is a MS driver. A message in each of their
Properties says they are both working correctly.

I can't remember loading a separate driver when I originally installed the
drive when new. And I can't find a CD now.

The following settings are shown:
Volume = (F:)
Layout = Partition
Type = Basic
File System = (this is blank)
Status = Healthy (Active)
Capacity = 372.60GB
Free Space = 372.60GB
% Free = 100%
Fault Tolerance = No
Overhead = 0%
Click to expand...
these settings are very similar to the bootable C drive with the
differences
being the capacity and the Status shows Healthy (System) and the File
System
shows NTFS.

When I right click on the F drive under 'Volume' the File system on the
General tab shows as RAW. The C drive shows (as you would expect) NTFS.

As suggested, when I right click on the F drive under 'Volume', Open and
Explore are there - but the same error message saying the disk in drife F
is
not formatted appears. C works fine.

Thanks for the perseverence - I hope I've answered your questions

Roy
Click to expand...


Roy:
I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but from your most recent
description it seems that the former data on your HD is gone. How it
happened I can't tell but it may have something to do when you performed a
fresh reinstall of the XP OS on your boot drive. (Whenever an OS is being
installed it's always wise, if possible, to disconnect all storage devices
from the system before the installation process is undertaken. But that's
water over the dam, I know.)

I guess your only course of action at this point is to use one or more
(so-called) data recovery programs and hope for the best. And failing that,
engaging a commercial data recovery entity - a most expensive proposition as
you can imagine.

Here's some links to a number of data recovery programs. Frankly, for the
most part, I've never had a great deal of luck with any of them, but many
users report success with this or that program. Some of them have demo
versions available. And, of course, you can do a Google search for others.

Perhaps others perusing this thread will have other suggestions.

http://www.undelete.com/undelete/undelete.asp
http://lc-tech.com/index.html
http://www.ontrack.com/
http://www.r-tt.com/
http://www.active-undelete.com/
http://www.easeus.com/download.htm
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/irecover.htm

Anna
 
Roy,

There is 1 other thing you can try. It's heresey. If you know someone who
is familiar with Linux, there are CD based o/s versions of Linux: Knoppix,
Linspire Live, eg. If you can get one of these CD's, you insert it into the
CD drive. When the o/s loads, you navigate to the second h/d and you may be
able to access and copy your files to other media.

Generally, these CD o/s are free.

Paul Shafer, MCDST
 
Anna,

Thanks for all of your help. I was sort of convinced that this was going to
be the probable course of action but I thought I'd try you guys after someone
had said that they had heard of this before and they had seen a fix for it on
the user forum.

I'll keep fingers crossed again and hope someone else grabs the baton - or
maybe post another plea for help (with more info on the original) - and
you'll be happy to note that I would not expect you to go through this loop
again.

Thanks again from wherever you are.

Cheers Roy
 
Roy said:
Anna,

Thanks for all of your help. I was sort of convinced that this was going
to
be the probable course of action but I thought I'd try you guys after
someone
had said that they had heard of this before and they had seen a fix for it
on
the user forum.

I'll keep fingers crossed again and hope someone else grabs the baton - or
maybe post another plea for help (with more info on the original) - and
you'll be happy to note that I would not expect you to go through this
loop
again.

Thanks again from wherever you are.

Cheers Roy
Click to expand...


Roy:
I can truly understand your frustration with this problem and I do hope that
somehow you can resurrect the data on that problem disk without the need of
pursuing third-party data recovery efforts. Perhaps you will receive some
advice re a course of action which will accomplish this. Should that be the
case I trust you will keep us informed.
Anna
 
Paul

Just to let you know that I asked my Linux friends (I work in a large IT
dept) but they could not see any files. However, they asked around further
and someone had 'getdataback for NTFS v2.31'. And it bloody worked!!!

Thanks for your perciverence(?)

Cheers

Roy
 
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