Help - hard drive not working right.

Dark_Angel · 30 Jan 2007 at 19:59

Hey.

I have 2 hard drives installed, 1 is a 250GB drive, partioned, and the other is a 120GB drive that has no partions.

The 120GB drive is NOT showing in Windows Explorer.

If I look under admin tools, computer management, disk managment I can see it there reading "dynamic" and "foreign". I went from XP Pro to XP home SP2, is this the problem? I right click and it says I can convert the disk, but it will get rid of ALL of the data.

PLEASE help me, I really dont want to format that drive!

Tute · 30 Jan 2007 at 20:23

Er.. if the 120GB drive has no partitions, how can there be data on it? :confused:

Dark_Angel · 30 Jan 2007 at 20:29

There IS data on it, I know that for certain.

I wiped my other drive with a format (and ONLY that drive) so I could install windows again.

It DOES show up, but just reads as Dynamic and "foreign"... I am guessing that the data IS there, but is not formatted correctly for XP home SP2. It was previously used on XP Pro.

Tute · 30 Jan 2007 at 20:31

It's odd, as NTFS hasn't changed since Windows 98, so there should be no problem.

I've also seen a couple of other threads with this very issue on the forums, it might be worth doing a search to see if those users had any luck resolving it.

Failing that, can you try the drive on another PC to make 100% sure it's Vista playing up?

Dark_Angel · 30 Jan 2007 at 20:45

Its not vista though

I have gone from XP Pro to XP Home.

If I install XP Home on to the "gone weird" drive, will that mean it formats it?

Tute · 30 Jan 2007 at 20:49

Dark_Angel said:
Its not vista though I have gone from XP Pro to XP Home.

If I install XP Home on to the "gone weird" drive, will that mean it formats it?

Bah, that'll teach me to try and follow about 8 different threads.

The last part still stands though, it might be worth trying it in another PC just to be 100% sure, drives can go bad totally out of the blue.

Dark_Angel · 30 Jan 2007 at 21:16

Ok. That is ODD. I tried using the XP home boot disk, and when I get to the "setup" menu, where you can chose the partion (or create/delete partions) the disk shows perfectly. Reading the drive as "backup" as it is meant to be called.

I am literally begging here, does anyone have suggestions? If I install XP on THAT drive (the one NOT showing up in XP home on the main partion) will that nuke the data on it? Assuming I just leave the partion alone, and I just click "setup" on that partion. Will that mean that the drive will have windows just installed on it, and that the other data will be fine.

I have LOTS of important documents on the drive, I can't afford to lose them

Dark_Angel · 30 Jan 2007 at 21:37

A free program named Active Partition recovery allows me to see ALL of the files there, but because it is free, won't let me recovery it. Anyone know of a free tool that would work??