2nd hard drive not recognized after Win XP reinstall

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G

Guest

I have a maxtor 250 Gig HD that I use for backup for my main 120 Gig HD.
I recently reinstalled Win XP Pro w/SP2 (new install) on my main HD and all
went well.
My backup HD is listed in the BIOS, and in Manage My Computer and in My
computer, but when I try to access it, Windows tells me it is not formatted
and do I want to. (NO)
I want to save everything on the 2nd HD, everything is still there, just not
accessable.
I have read all the post I found on the subject, but none quite matched my
problem.
Can anybody help?
 
What kind of hard drive - SATA or IDE? What file format - FAT32 or NTFS?
What motherboard? What drive letter is assigned in manage my computer? Try
connecting the drive to another computer to see if it is readable or the same
problem.
 
Sorry, I left out the pertinate info.
IDE, NTFS, MOBO I don't know, Drive letter is Now G which IS changeable.
I will try the drive in another Computer and see if that works.
It was an internal secondary slave and worked fine before the reinstall.
I bought an external USB HD case and same problem.

Thanks for the quick response.
 
For drive c:\ what type of drive is that - SATA or IDE? Is c:\ sharing with
the Maxtor 250 GB? You might want to check more carefully that c:\ is master
and the other is slave (if shared). Try a different cable. Try switching
the cable connects from one drive to the other (if shared).
 
WAHOO, I figured it out.
I ran CHKDSK /f and it "fixed" a bad section of my G drive.
My primary drive is IDE and my secondary drive is IDE.
Originally I had my primary as the master with the Maxtor 250 as the Slave
(through or with) the primary DVD drive. whichever way is the prefered method
in the Maxtor manual is the way I set it up and it worked perfectly for a
year until I reinstalled WinXP. Then something got lost on installation.
What I figured happened is when I installed the Maxtor, I ran the Maxtor
install utility software from my primary drive, and when I formatted the
Primary, the MBT or MBR or the location thereof got lost. (Not quite sure if
this is possible).
All of this worked while the Maxtor secondary was in an external HD enclosure.

Geminate, thanks for your answers and I hope all of this will help someone
else.
I have never encountered this problem before, but the next time instead of 2
days to figure out and fix, it will take all of 10 Minutes.
 
I have never encountered this problem before, but the next time instead of
2
days to figure out and fix, it will take all of 10 Minutes.
Click to expand...

The Troubleshooting Memory Rule (TM) says it'll be three years before you
see it again, and you'll have forgotten all but the symptoms at that time.
:-)

Glad you got it fixed, it sounded terminal for a while.

-John O
 
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