I have a WD 120 gig slave hard drive which is now
inaccessible according to My Computer and it is
unreadable on Disk Management. I'm running windows 2000,
i've done everything short of formating the hard drive.
"now"????
What happened or what did you do _before_ this drive became inaccessible?
If you did nothing (eg, no updates, no security patches, etc), then the most
likely hardware problems are that you have a failed drive, or that there is a
cabling problem. The most likely software problem is a corrupt registry.
To find out whether it's a hardware problem, check whether BIOS can see the
drive and reports it correctly (type and size). If not, run the autodetect,
and see if that works. If it doesn't, you may find that you can restore the
drive by removing and reinserting the control cables, or by replacing them,
as sometimes small amounts of corrosion on the contacts block the control
signals, or sometimes those small wires in the cable break. So do the cable
thing, and then autodetect in BIOS again. If BIOS still can't see the drive,
then the drive is IMO done for.
If BIOS sees the drive, you have a software problem, most likely a corrupt
registry. There are several ways to fix this, for example, Repair from Safe
Mode. Other posters will direct you to other methods.
If the drive is fried, a specialised shop may be able recover data from it,
but only you know whether it's worth paying for that service.
HTH&GL
--
Best Wishes,
Wolf Kirchmeir, Blind River ON
"Not that brains are everything --
you'll also need a skull to put them in." (Nancy Franklin, 1997)
<just one w and plain ca for correct address>
