Reformatted, Second Hard Disk Disabled?

[L]

I just reformatted and with my main drive C:\ wiped,
I could not find my second HD.
How can I enable/use it again without deleting everything on it.
http://img359.imageshack.us/img359/6894/harddrivemq2.jpg

 

[Devion]

Ok just lets get through the first steps.

HDD1 with windows MUST be master, HDD2 MUST be slave.(No cable select)
This must be done through jumpers on the HDD's themselves.

Start up in the bios by restarting and hitting the DEL button.(Could be F8 it defers from mobo to mobo)
Make sure everything is on autodetect and not disabled.

Last attempt, make sure that the cables are ok and are connected in the right way.

P.s. Did you make partition's when you reinstalled windows? If you havent made a partition of your 2nd HDD it could be the reason why windows doesnt see it.

 

[L]

The Master & Slave were already set up before the reformat.
I didnt make a partition when I reinstalled windows, wouldnt that delete everything on the drive?

 

[|Overlord|]

Did you make partition's when you reinstalled windows? If you havent made a partition of your 2nd HDD it could be the reason why windows doesnt see it.

Probably a likely cause. Other then that, is your other hdd a SATA hdd? did you setup the drivers for your SATA controller at the time you would of setup your mainboard drivers arfter reformatting (assumnig you have a mainboard that has SATA). Explroe your mainboard cd, look for your SATA drivers (they are small fiels that will fit onto a floppy), shove them on a disk then go to Control Panel > Add hardware, chose that you have the nessacary disk to setup what you are adding and after that reboot.

 

[L]

I dont think they're SATA Hard drives..
I switched from Windows Pro(Ripped) to Windows Home(Geniune)
I'm diggin' this new IE 7 =O
Would switching from Pro to Home make a difference?
http://img57.imageshack.us/img57/184/harddrive2ti1.jpg
It's still recognized as being there.. I saved most of my stuff I want to keep on that drive.
In order:
K:\ Desktop Drive,
?:\ Cannot use,
C:\ Main HD.

 

[DiebytheSword]

Okay, since I recently had this problem, I will tell you the only garaunteed way to fix it.

Firstly, to explain why it happens, you must understand that newer drives run with a low level software called a drive overlay. This software, even if not needed, will install itself on any drive you connect to your system. This was originally intended to bypass the 130 or so gb barrier on XP before SP1, and even more heinous, the hardware limitations in BIOSes on older mobos. I don't recall the exact volume of the limit. Regardless, it's been around for a long time, and can even end up on small drives. I've had it install on a 20GB drive. Most modern mobos do not need it. Google EZ Drive and you will see that I speak the truth.

The point is, the Drive Overlay will install itself on any drive and SUPERSEED the MBR, or Master Boot Record.

Your data is not lost, windows just can't see it becuse the drive overlay stores the MBR for logical disk 1 and higher on disk 0's MBR. This is a retarded setup, but it's how it runs. The long and the short of it is that when you dump drive 0, you lose drive 1 and up.

The cure? This ones a toughy, and you are going to have to buy a program to fix it. MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT YOU DO NOT RUN DEFRAG, FORMAT, REPARTITION OR DO ANYTHING ELSE TO THE BLANK DISK OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DATA FOREVER.

This is the site where you can get the program: http://www.ptdd.com/

From the operations menu, choose rebuild partition and let it run. After some time, let it rebuild the MBR on that same disk. Move on to the next disk and repeat from the begining, you will get your data back garaunteed. Remember, if you do anything that writes to either of those disks, you will lose your data permanently.

 

[Kurt`]

Start->run->"diskmgmt.msc"

I win the thread \o

 

[DiebytheSword]

It's still recognized as being there.. I saved most of my stuff I want to keep on that drive.
In order:
K:\ Desktop Drive,
?:\ Cannot use,
C:\ Main HD.

Actually, you fail it. Wryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

 

[L]

From the operations menu, choose rebuild partition and let it run. After some time, let it rebuild the MBR on that same disk. Move on to the next disk and repeat from the begining, you will get your data back garaunteed. Remember, if you do anything that writes to either of those disks, you will lose your data permanently.

Ok, so I have to Rebuild Partition & Rebuild MBR on C:\ (Disk 0), then ?:\ (Disk 1)?
Or just Rebuild MBR on Disk 1(No other options available?)

 

[dan_esf_fanatic]

Get PartitionMagic. It's a program designed for resizing, and creating new partitions. Simply make C smaller, and create D. PartitionMagic is probably the best solution. And the simplest.

EDIT: Hey, I just remembered that PartitionMagic isn't free. So instead, get PartitionLogic. I don't think it's as good, but it's free! Only there's a little problem. It's an image file. But if you have an image loading program, like Nero ImageDrive, you can load it directly off your Hard Disk without having to burn it on a CD.

 

[|Overlord|]

Get PartitionMagic. It's a program designed for resizing, and creating new partitions. Simply make C smaller, and create D. PartitionMagic is probably the best solution. And the simplest.

EDIT: Hey, I just remembered that PartitionMagic isn't free. So instead, get PartitionLogic. I don't think it's as good, but it's free! Only there's a little problem. It's an image file. But if you have an image loading program, like Nero ImageDrive, you can load it directly off your Hard Disk without having to burn it on a CD.

Why partitino C:\ when he can't even see his other drive? He has another hdd he can use to back his stuff up on, so partitino C:\ is rather unessacary (useful though if you have a big hdd as your main drive. My 160gb is partitioned 20gb for OS and the other partition is for storage, games etc).

Okay, since I recently had this problem, I will tell you the only garaunteed way to fix it.

Firstly, to explain why it happens, you must understand that newer drives run with a low level software called a drive overlay. This software, even if not needed, will install itself on any drive you connect to your system. This was originally intended to bypass the 130 or so gb barrier on XP before SP1, and even more heinous, the hardware limitations in BIOSes on older mobos. I don't recall the exact volume of the limit. Regardless, it's been around for a long time, and can even end up on small drives. I've had it install on a 20GB drive. Most modern mobos do not need it. Google EZ Drive and you will see that I speak the truth.

The point is, the Drive Overlay will install itself on any drive and SUPERSEED the MBR, or Master Boot Record.

Your data is not lost, windows just can't see it becuse the drive overlay stores the MBR for logical disk 1 and higher on disk 0's MBR. This is a retarded setup, but it's how it runs. The long and the short of it is that when you dump drive 0, you lose drive 1 and up.

The cure? This ones a toughy, and you are going to have to buy a program to fix it. MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT YOU DO NOT RUN DEFRAG, FORMAT, REPARTITION OR DO ANYTHING ELSE TO THE BLANK DISK OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DATA FOREVER.

This is the site where you can get the program: http://www.ptdd.com/

From the operations menu, choose rebuild partition and let it run. After some time, let it rebuild the MBR on that same disk. Move on to the next disk and repeat from the begining, you will get your data back garaunteed. Remember, if you do anything that writes to either of those disks, you will lose your data permanently.

From what I remember reading about 4yrs back, ATA's limit was 137GB or so.

 

[DiebytheSword]

137 is the magic number, thanks Overlord. Most modern systems get past it with native 48-bit LBA.

You are perfoming actions on disk 1 (which shows up as Disk 2 on PTDD, either way it will be the drive letter of the inaccessable drive). Incedentally, Partition Magic will not run on your drive because EZ Drive will cause a CRC error when it attempts to access it for the first time, you shouldn't need it though.

BTW, Partitioning a drive into two logical volumes reduces the speed of that physical drive. Always leave your system drive in one piece for maximum performance.

 

[|Overlord|]

Partitioning a drive into two logical volumes reduces the speed of that physical drive. Always leave your system drive in one piece for maximum performance.

I partition drives if they are big enough to warrant making a 2nd partition for storage as opposed to using a smaller or slowe hdd as the main hdd. If you were to just have one hdd in your system, partitioning does save you going through the pain of having to go find solutions to recover your data if you can't boot into windows or if it screws up. If you have a 2nd hdd, but smaller, you can only use that for so long untill it's space runs out depending on the size of it.

I go for using the systems's main HDD as the main hdd and if it's big enough to warrant partitioning it then do so. While it may have some drawbacks, atleast if something happens to your system it saves you having to burn your data to cd/dvd if you keep stuff on the 2nd partition on a system with one hdd. However, If you have mirrored raid setup (Even though I myself haven't come across a raid setup myself or set one up), I suppose you can worry a bit less, unless a virus on your OS drive was mirrored onto your other hdd depending on how you had the raid arrary setup.

 

[L]

You are perfoming actions on disk 1 (which shows up as Disk 2 on PTDD, either way it will be the drive letter of the inaccessable drive). Incedentally, Partition Magic will not run on your drive because EZ Drive will cause a CRC error when it attempts to access it for the first time, you shouldn't need it though.

So what do I need to do? I've only got two options on the dynamic drive,
Surface test & Rebuild MBR..
I just want to know do I rebuild my main drives MBR first then the second drive?
Edit: I have three HD's (76.5G Each) so I'm not concerned with how much space I have left after just deleting everything on C:\.
One of which is a desktop drive of which I saved the majority of my files on before the reformat, so please off that topic.

 

[dan_esf_fanatic]

Try this: Format your disk again, only this time make one partition. Then, from Windows, use one of the programs I told you about to create a new partition. It is much better to create partitions from Windows, because otherwise if you goof up you could end up with 2 OS's on each partition.

 

[|Overlord|]

Try this: Format your disk again, only this time make one partition. Then, from Windows, use one of the programs I told you about to create a new partition. It is much better to create partitions from Windows, because otherwise if you goof up you could end up with 2 OS's on each partition.

Wrong. Partitions are done a lot better with a dos boot disk then from windows with partition magic.

Okay, since I recently had this problem, I will tell you the only garaunteed way to fix it.

Firstly, to explain why it happens, you must understand that newer drives run with a low level software called a drive overlay. This software, even if not needed, will install itself on any drive you connect to your system. This was originally intended to bypass the 130 or so gb barrier on XP before SP1, and even more heinous, the hardware limitations in BIOSes on older mobos. I don't recall the exact volume of the limit. Regardless, it's been around for a long time, and can even end up on small drives. I've had it install on a 20GB drive. Most modern mobos do not need it. Google EZ Drive and you will see that I speak the truth.

The point is, the Drive Overlay will install itself on any drive and SUPERSEED the MBR, or Master Boot Record.

Your data is not lost, windows just can't see it becuse the drive overlay stores the MBR for logical disk 1 and higher on disk 0's MBR. This is a retarded setup, but it's how it runs. The long and the short of it is that when you dump drive 0, you lose drive 1 and up.

The cure? This ones a toughy, and you are going to have to buy a program to fix it. MAKE ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT YOU DO NOT RUN DEFRAG, FORMAT, REPARTITION OR DO ANYTHING ELSE TO THE BLANK DISK OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR DATA FOREVER.

This is the site where you can get the program: http://www.ptdd.com/

From the operations menu, choose rebuild partition and let it run. After some time, let it rebuild the MBR on that same disk. Move on to the next disk and repeat from the begining, you will get your data back garaunteed. Remember, if you do anything that writes to either of those disks, you will lose your data permanently.

Best advice in this thread atm.

If you're suggesting he create another partition on his C: as well, how does that help his problem of not being able to see his other HDD?.

 

[DiebytheSword]

So what do I need to do? I've only got two options on the dynamic drive,
Surface test & Rebuild MBR..
I just want to know do I rebuild my main drives MBR first then the second drive?
Edit: I have three HD's (76.5G Each) so I'm not concerned with how much space I have left after just deleting everything on C:\.
One of which is a desktop drive of which I saved the majority of my files on before the reformat, so please off that topic.

You are rebuilding the MBR on your secondary drive, leave the MBR on C: alone. EZDrive will automatically adjust the MBR on C to include the data from the other drives. Make sure that you select the drives that are not appearing for the operation tabs, also, the demo version will not allow you to affect changes.

Dan, your advice is bad, if he formats and partitions the "missing" drives, he will lose the data he's trying to recover. Granted, he may get the drive back, but that is not ultimately his goal.

 

[L]

Just to be positive..
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3041/doublecheckingiq4.jpg
Is this what I do?
In order:
Disk 1- C:\
Disk 2- ?:\
Disk 3: K\ (Desktop H-Drive)

 

[|Overlord|]

Just to be positive..
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/3041/doublecheckingiq4.jpg
Is this what I do?
In order:
Disk 1- C:\
Disk 2- ?:\
Disk 3: K\ (Desktop H-Drive)

Assuming this is the disk you can't currently see atm, then yes. However as already stated by Cucumba, you'll need to get the full version as the demo version will not allow you to affect changes.

 

[DiebytheSword]

Assuming that C is the newly formatted drive, you will skip doing anything to this drive.

Assuming that the ? drive is the one with the lost data, begin with this one.

Assuming that K is also not functioning, restore this one next.

Also, I am reasonably sure that he has the full version, he has the same copy as me if I'm not mistaken. Heh.