Installed Windows on my new hard drive, now my others wont work? (new update)

[snarcher]

Here is the story,

My 80gig finally died that had windows on it, so i got a new 160gig sata and swapped them out.

I left my 1.5TB and 640g drives connected the whole time.

When I booted up for the first time with no OS isntalled on the new drive, it wanted me to format it, so i did, and then it also had me format like 131gigs on the other 2, i think??

So now, when i go to my computer and click on the big drives, they dont open, they say they need to be formatted, but this is something I do not want to do!! its where all my stuff is!!!

Is there anything I can do to get my stuff back? see attached image.. THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

[Saving space, attachment deleted by admin]

[Allan]

Okay, I give up. How did you boot to a drive with no OS on it?

[snarcher]

I mean I put in the hard drive, put the XP disc in the CD rom and hit the "on" button on the tower. sorry hehe

[Allan]

Then what? Did you boot to the CD? Did you then install the OS on the new drive? And what do you mean it had you format the other drives?

[snarcher]

I installed XP on the new drive, but for some reason before the installation ever occured it just wanted me to format a partition on the other drives, I thought perhaps it switched the drive letters around on me because it said something like

format 131gb on drive F
format 131gb on drive D
format 131gb and drive C

and I stupidly let it make the new partitions on the storage drives.

can you see the picture i attached?

im just wondering if I can make the other partion the active one i guess?? is that possible??

[snarcher]

now i realize that i formatted a partition on one of my OLD hard drives AND the new one, and installed windows on the OLD hard drive!!!!

so i unplugged the 2 old HDs and am currently installing windows on the NEW Hard drive, with hopes to rescue the data from the OLD hard drives when i plug them in..

any idea how i would be able to rescue the data?:

[patio]

Not if the drives partitions were wiped and formatted...
There are data recovery Apps out ther but i'd say it's about 50/ 50 right now.

[Computer_Commando]

...any idea how i would be able to rescue the data?:

You'll find out when you plug them back in.  Like Patio says, about 50/50 chance.

[snarcher]

ok so I used recuva and got just about all my stuff back even AFTER i formatted my back up hard drives! crazy program! WOOHOO!!!

so what I did was:

install new hard drive

create a new partition on my back up hard drives

install windows on one of the back ups instead of my new hard drive

so to fix, I unplugged the back up hard drives, re-formatted my new hard drive, installed windows on it, then I plugged my back up hard drives back in and formatted them after I ran recuva on them.

workin great now, thanks bye!