Unable to Change Drive Letter

[Perry]

I have a SATA drive I have pulled off another computer. On the original
computer yhe Windows user logon would start and then immediately showing
logging off and then back at the select user screen. This happened in Safe
Mode and Last Known too. I ran a complete Seagate diagnostic (long version)
and the hd tested fine. Also ran chkdsk from recovery console. All with no
effect, so my assumption is the file system is corrupt, preventing Windows
from starting.

So I pulled the hard drive and have attached it 2 different comptuers, XP
and Vista, in all cases the hd shows up in Disk Management as online and
healthy but when I right-click the drive the only option is Delete Parition
and Help. All of the other options are grayed out.

This is not an issue of taking the next available drive letter because you
cannot click Change Drive Letter. I have even tried moving all of the
subsequent devices out one letter but it makes no difference. I ahve tried
Bart PE but the drive does not show up.

I am trying to get the data off of the drive and then I would be fine
deleting the partition and formatting the drive. My assumption is that this
would fix the problem.

Anyone have an idea how to acces the data?

Thanks,
Perry

 

[Rich Barry]

Perry, I just read somewhere that Seagate had some problems with their
drives

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126280

 

[THE C. [MS MVP]]

The problem is with their 1.5TB 7200.12 drives only. A firmware update is
available at Seagate.com, if the OP needs it.
--
Computer/Software Tech.

Make it a great day!

Charles Richmond

 

[Perry]

It is a Western Digital WD2500.

Perry, I just read somewhere that Seagate had some problems with their
drives

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126280

 

[Jim]

Perhaps you should explain why you ran Seagate diagnostics against a Western
Digital drive...
Jim

 

[Anteaus]

First, check that you are using the same access method as previously. Most
use LBA but one or two use the Large (bit-shift) translation method. Using
the wrong method (set in the bios) will result in the data appearing to be
junk.

Then, get yourself a Knoppix bootable CD, and try mounting the partition in
KDE- first the standard way, then (if no joy that way) with ntfs-3g.

For some reason the Linux NTFS drivers are able to read damaged partitions
that the Microsoft drivers won't even look at. Therefore, always worth a try.
Knoppix has made a few friends for me by getting-back data the owner thought
was gone forever.

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