lanorg

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Jan 28, 2006
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Salutations,

Problem:
placed two harddiscs in different computer. they are seen by windows in the administrative hardisc management area: START > ADMINTOOLS > COMPMGT > DISCMGT.

However, i cannot find an option to set the drives up to beable to access them again without being asked to format. This I cannot do. I have valuable data stored on them.

What am i doing wrong?

Thank you in advance.
 

Codesmith

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Were these drives part of a RAID array?

Do other SATA drives function as expected when connected to the same ports?

What exactly are you seeing in Disc Management for each drive?

Unknown, xxxGB, Not Initialized, --- xxx GB Unallocated?

Your motherboard and hard drive models would also be usefull.
 

lanorg

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i can rename the drives, their paths anyway.
dfi nf2 lanparty. they are attached to the onboard sata ports. They are not in raid and were not before.
The drives are 250GB WDs.

I'm hoping I can plug them intoa different pc and try to save the data that way. But theya re not working in my computer, so I'm sure if i can retrieve the data at all. I know I can send them away and spend about a grand to have them taken apart et cetera, but thats too expensive.

The sata ports work fine for my 716sa dvd drive, tried all ports with it.
Disc mgt says the drives are "initialized" but apparently i have to format them to be able to use them. says space used&avail = 0%, size = no value shown.
 

pat

Expert
i can rename the drives, their paths anyway.
dfi nf2 lanparty. they are attached to the onboard sata ports. They are not in raid and were not before.
The drives are 250GB WDs.

I'm hoping I can plug them intoa different pc and try to save the data that way. But theya re not working in my computer, so I'm sure if i can retrieve the data at all. I know I can send them away and spend about a grand to have them taken apart et cetera, but thats too expensive.

The sata ports work fine for my 716sa dvd drive, tried all ports with it.
Disc mgt says the drives are "initialized" but apparently i have to format them to be able to use them. says space used&avail = 0%, size = no value shown.

Was the SATA controller the HDD was plugged in an onboard one like Sil or Promise?

Some older onboard SATA controller would requiere a pseudo RAID array with one HDD in order to work as single SATA drive anyway. Fact is, if it is the case, there is some RAID metadata written on the HDD that confuse the controller about what really the drives are. I'm not sure how to erase those metadata without whiping the HDD thou. But that should give you some clue about where to start...
 

Codesmith

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Hmm... Well here are some things you could try

Is the new PC funning an pre SP1 version of windows XP (doesn't support partition sizes over 127 GB?

Update your chipset to the latest version, update your SATA controller drivers to the latest version.

Maybe you should try doing some research to see if your model motherboard has a problem with that model SATA drive?

Purchase a cheap 2 port SATA PCI card.

Some controllers require that you enter RAID setup and create a one disc array, NVIDIA controlers let you enable/disable raid in the BIOS. However if something like that was your problem you shouldn't see the drive at all.

I have moved drives from a Sil3114 controler which required one disk arrays to an NVIDIA NF4 SATA controler and back again with no problems, also clearing the BIOS forces me to recreate the single drive array, so I am GUESSING that no changes are made to the drive by adding it to a single drive array and instead the configuration is stored in the controller.
 

lanorg

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Thanks, but there are no moron errors occurring here.
I've decided to try and access it with a pirated software program my friend has.
So far it is being read as "raw" and not NTFS as i assumed it was and corrupted. But we'll see what tomorrow has to offer.
thanks for your help.
 

DD_Jay_AZ

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Jan 8, 2006
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Do the HDD's have drive letters?

If not, can you assign them?

Try this:
FIXMBR
fixmbr device name
Use this command to repair the MBR of the boot partition. In the command syntax, device name is an optional device name that specifies the device that requires a new MBR. Use this command if a virus has damaged the MBR and Windows cannot start.

Warning This command can damage your partition tables if a virus is present or if a hardware problem exists. If you use this command, you may create inaccessible partitions. We recommend that you run antivirus software before you use this command.

You can obtain the device name from the output of the map command. If you do not specify a device name, the MBR of the boot device is repaired, for example:
fixmbr deviceharddisk2
If the fixmbr command detects an invalid or non-standard partition table signature, fixmbr command prompts you for permission before rewriting the MBR. The fixmbr command is supported only on x86-based computers.

You might have to flash your BIOS to support the drives.

Force the SATA drives in SATA 150 (GEN 1) mode for compatibility, on WD's I think it's jumper 5 + 6.

See if you can run CHKDSK on the drive somehow to repair the MFT.

If nothing else, a program by "EaseUs" called DataRecoveryWizard claims to be able to repair "RAW" drives.

If it turns out to be MBR or MFT corruption, which it porbably will, NTFS stores a backup copy or both so they can be repaired. MBR is harder to recover then MFT though, MFT keeps an exact mirror copy of itself.

You CAN do this manually with a sector reader/writer like DiskProbe from Microsoft. You can also change between Basic and Dynamic disk formats by doing this. (01C0, 3rd bit, 07 is basic, 42 or 43 I think is Dynamic, if I recall.)

Use NTFSInfo from SysInternals.com to find your MFT manually. MBR and backup are always in the same place, I forget where though.. GOOGLE IT!
 

krsdick

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Download the drivers for the hard drives to a different PC. Burn them to a CD disc. Use the CD to start the sata hard drives.
 

DD_Jay_AZ

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There are drivers for Hard Drives now? I'm so out of the times...

I do imagine he doesn't have any unknown devices, he seems knowledgeable enough to at least make sure all of his drivers are installed for the controller.
 

Codesmith

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What?

Hard drive's and CD-Rom's don't require drivers, any drivers are for the controller they connect to.

If you are giving directions for installing storage drivers to a working XP installation then you wouldn't need a 2nd PC or a CD. You can just download and install the drivers.

If you are giving directions for loading storage drivers while installing XP, you need to put the drivers on a Floppy. There should be an option to load from CD, but there is isn't.

You can however create a custom Windows XP install CD that includes your storage drivers so you don't have to load any drivers at all, but its a complicated process.