2nd HDD not working

Greetings.

I have my windows installation on one hard disk, and another disk with my programs partition, and a 2nd partition on that disc for files/junk. I Defragged the programs partition yesterday with no problems. I began to defrag the files partition and the computer bluescreened and rebooted.

After the reboot, windows would not boot. It goes through the windows splash screen like usual, then the screen goes black when I would normally see the log-in window next, but it just stays black and nothing else happens. I tried to boot in diagnostic mode, safe mode, etc., no luck. Finally, I disconnected my 2nd drive and windows loads just fine.

If I boot the Windows XP Disc with my system drive hooked up, in either SATA port, I can launch recovery console just fine. If I try to do this with my programs/files drive hooked up, it hangs at "Examing disc....." for several minutes, then bluescreens and reboots.

Normally, I'd throw the drive away... but there is something on this drive which I quite foolishly did not back up elsewhere (or, I think I did but lost the backup disk).

So... any suggestions would still be very much welcomed and appreciated.

Thanks in Advance!

XP SP3
both are SATA hard drives using onboard controllers.
Motherboard: Asus a7n8x-e deluxe.

Take the disk out and put it in another computer. Try to access the files.
Run Hard Disk Diagnostics on the disk also.

I don't know why you have the program files on another drive. The only reason that makes sense is you don't have enough room which implies a very old and small hard drive.

At any rate, you should get a newer drive. Without knowing your details I suggest the Western Digital 1TB Black.

Next time maybe give a few extra details so we can help you more (such as your hard drive size and name).

Bah! Even testdisk can't read anything from the drive. The drive shows in bios with the correct size, etc., but that's it. Testdisk can't even read sector 0...

I connected it to a SATA to USB adapter and windows recognizes the USB device but will not assign a drive letter to it (like it does with a camera or jumpdrive) and doesn't show the drive in Disk Management (cameras/jumpdrives do show here). In Device Manager I can see the USB drive, but windows is unable to find any volume/partition info from the drive, it says "unreadable"

Furthermore, I'm positive that the drive spins up and it sounds fine at first. After leaving it spinning for a few minutes though, it starts making clicking noises.

Any conclusions, thoughts, advice?

Thanks again for your time.