Hard drive not recognised

[always_trying]

Hi All,
This is my first post and have tried to find answer on here but to no avail.

I have a fairly new PC system, bought from Mesh and the problem all stems from a harddrive crash and subsequent replacement. I bought the system with 2 hard-drives (one just for storage) when the system drive crashed and was found to be faulty this was replaced under warranty, the problem I am having is that I can no longer access my drive D and the only advice I have had is to re-format the drive. The drive is shown in device manager etc, I just cant access it. The main reason for my post is there any way I can rectify the problem without re-formatting as I do not want to lose the data on there (although most is backed up, some important data isnt and I would like to avoid the cost of using a data recovery service).
Thank-you in anticipation of your help.

[sealbee]

I had the same problem once, I found a cheap recovery program at downloads.com. I reformatted and was still able to recover my files, only had a problem with a few .jpg's not working after that.
Some body else here probably knows a different, better way, but this is something to keep in mind.

[patio]

If the only advice you got was to format the drive well then all you got was bad advice...Formatting erases data and although recovery is sometimes possible the planets have to be in perfect alignment for this to take place.
It doesn't make sense that by replacing your C: drive you lost access to D: so here's a few questions:
What OS are you running ?
Did you password protect or encrypt the D: drive prior to this ? ?
Have you tried removing the drive and hooking it up as a slave to another machine to see if you can see the data ? ?
How did you re-install the OS after the C: drive failed ? ?

Something doesn't add up.

patio.   8-)

[dl65]

always trying.......  Lets run through the issue again.  You have a new machine and it came with 2 hard drives ..... ( so presumably C: had windows on it and the 2nd drive D: was used for storage ) Then for no apparent reason , C: drive failed .......... ( the one which contained  the operating system and programs )
A new C: drive was supplied under warantee and the operating system reinstalled ......... D: was left intact ...so when C: drive was up and running your saying that you are unable to see D: ?   That makes no sense. Did you check to be sure the jumpers on the drives were set correctly ?

dl65  

[GX1_Man]

You may want to try this to save your data back to C or to a CDRW, etc. and then format D (if that is really necessary).

http://www.computerhope.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1152393350/0#0

Under properties for that  D drive what is the file format? Did this start out as NTFS by chance?

This may also be helpful.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

[pcj240ross]

try new cables, check the pins on the drive too

[panboy]

Ive Seen XP sometime Decide that it wont turn on a foreign Disk, open up Disk Management and see if it says the Drive is online, you may need to tell windows to import the foreign disk (This is a rare thing to happen)

[always_trying]

Thanks for all your replies, apologies for the delay in replying back.
In answer to your replies I can add the following.

I am running XP sp2, The new drive was sent with XP pre-loaded but no drivers and after various other minor problems I had to re-format this drive using my manufacturer supplied recovery disc. When doing this I was advised to unplug the D drive to prevent accidental (I am a novice user really) reformatting of drive D, up until this point the system recognised drive D, It is after this re-format that drive D has dissapeared from My Computer and is inaccessible to my amateur use. When you open device manager it shows the drive and confirms the drivers are all current etc, I am just unable to access any of the data.

Unfortunately I havent been in a position to try the drive in another PC, perhaps that is the next port of call, to make sure it is not just another corrupt drive.


GX1 man , will try your advice links tommorrow and report back.

I am sorry if my query and explanation sounds a little vague, but I am no expert I am afraid.

Once again, thankyou all so much for your time so far.

[patio]

If the drive is showing up in XP what does the description of the drive say ? ?