New Install, Missing 2nd HD

[kithrax]

Ok I need some serious help or I will be in deep *** with my wife.

Here's the nutshell, decided to reinstall vista to clean up my system a bit. Wanted a fresh install so I put ALL my important stuff on the second harddrive 1Tb. Tons of family photos!

So I reinstalled Vista just fine but NOW the 2nd hard drive wont show up in my computer. Using the Disk Management Utility I can see the drive on there, but can not assign a drive letter to it. When right clicking the partition it has greyed out all options except for delete Volume or help. This harddrive worked fine before the fresh install and has about 560gb of data stored on it. Most important files are my family photos and some work documents. I am going crazy with this, both drives are Sata drives.

My BACKUP drive is showing up as Disk 0 and primary partition, while the OS drive is disk 1 also primary partition.

ANY assistance in saving my data would really lower my stress levels right now.

 

[wa1]

what type? SATA or IDE? don't mess with their jumper...
try to switch your hard drive and see if that make any changes...

 

[kithrax]

as stated both drives are SATA, neither have jumpers. Have switched the SATA cables, doesnt fix the issue. My 1tb was originally formatted in Vista, partitioned in Vista, but now vista doesn't think the HD is a Vista Partition.

 

[wa1]

no no, i mean switch the drives, not the cable...

 

[gtvr]

Vista is definitely on the 1st HD, not the 2nd/backup HD?

Can you take that (2nd) HD to another PC and connect it there, see if it's visible there?

 

[wa1]

yes, u can...
try it on...

 

[kithrax]

Negative, at this current moment I do not have a seperate system I can switch this Hard Drive to. Will try to reinstall Vista again and see if something magical happens.

 

[kithrax]

Ok so I cleaned the southbridge with a gasoline/alcohol mixture then burned off the thermal pad that was connecting the heatsink to the motherboard. Well, so far things are going well due to that stupid heatsink not allowing the southbridge to heat up to its optimal performance level. Now that is running at 88°C I can access the information on the backup drive. Seems a bit corrupted now though... something just isnt settling well in the back of my mind with the smell coming out of the case now.

 

[gtvr]

Weird joke, right?

 

[wa1]

oh no, 88'C is pretty hot and the smell coming out of the case is a bad sign...
if u still doesn't have something to try then u better bring your computer to the professionals like service center...

 

[gtvr]

I mean the whole concept of "heating up to its optimal performance level". It's not a gasoline powered engine, it's a computer.

 

[kithrax]

Hehehe yup just a weird joke problem fixed itself during reinstall of Vista. Wish I could narrow it down but the first install had the 2nd HD set as "basic" then after reinstall disk management properly identified it as "Dynamic". All files are safe and computer is functioning as it should now. Software issue, something must have jilted the install...

 

[wa1]

okay, glad to hear that...

 

[kithrax]

Best answer selected by kithrax.