Second Hard Drive Disappeared..

[Beechy McFly]

Aloha all.. Please bare with me as I am not a computer wiz.. Recently my second hard drive, which is a main one for me as it has a lot of stuff I need, disappeared after a windows update..

I am running XP 64 Bit and had a windows update waiting.. Not exactly sure what it was suppose to be for, but updated.. When I rebooted, the system wouldn't boot, as it was trying to boot nVaida or something.. The only way to reboot it was to place the windows cd in.. Even now the system won't boot unless the disc is in it, which never had to before..

But the main thing was that my D:/ drive, second hard drive, was missing.. It doesn't show in the bios, well not that I can see, and when it boots it registers on the C:/ and no D:/.. Anyone have any clues what I can do to get it back? As the documents in it are important.. Thanx..

 

[manojgj]

get hirens boot cd & use the livexp with it to recover your data..

 

[Beechy McFly]

Thanx.. Do you happen to have links as I have looked but not sure what to download.. And are they easy to use? As I said I am a noob when it comes to computers..

Will this bring my D drive back? Thanx..

 

[manojgj]

get it here, link is at end of the page,,
http://www.hirensbootcd.net/details/10.2.html

if your OS is the problem you can get files using live XP, (or if the update corrupted your drive the you have tools in the CD to recover it back.. )

 

[Beechy McFly]

Ok.. Maybe I might have an issue.. LOL.. I ended up reformatting my C drive and a fresh install of XP, will this effect it?

 

[Beechy McFly]

BTW, where do I get livexp? LOL..

 

[manojgj]

boot with cd, it will give you option for live XP or hirens boot to continue, you can recover data from formated drives, but it can recovery more files with good condition if you format it as NTFS Quick,

 

[Beechy McFly]

LOL.. Yeah don't know.. No clue what I am looking at or what to do.. LOL..

 

[manojgj]

what do you want to do,
if you have formatted you drive use any one recovery tool to get data,
not yet formatted meant, than boot with live xp & check if you have drive shows the drives in explorer or else in disk management, then copy to files from you system partition( partition which has crashed xp 64 ) to any other partition or a drive as you wish..

 

[Beechy McFly]

LOL.. I opened the rar file and that is as far as i got.. LOL.. No clue what I am looking at or how to use it.. Sorry, I'm nub..

I formatted the c drive, not the d drive as couldnt access it as it doesn't appear anymore..

When I have used the windows disc before etc, I have never seen an option for live xp.. Think I am gonna have to spend $400 - 500 for someone to come out and try..

 

[manojgj]

live xp is not an official microsoft version..
its very simple to use hirens boot, after extracting you get iso file named hirensbootXXXXXX & an foler called keyboard patch..
copy iso image to keyboard patch folder & patch it for your keyboard layout..
that it... burn image to cd & use it

all of them are mentioned in read-me help file .. try it..

 

[Beechy McFly]

LOL never been able to get my head around iso.. Will have a look..

 

[elel]

Let me see if I have your situation straight. You have a computer that was running XP pro. In it are two drives; C and D. While the computer was working you booted from C and kept your important files on D. When you had to boot using the XP disk you could see the C but not the D. Then you reformatted the C drive, put a new install of XP on it, and left the D alone. So your present situation is that you have a computer which works fine but doesn't recognize the drive with your files. Is this correct? If so there might be a simple solution.

 

[Beechy McFly]

Yeah pretty much mate.. When the system rebooted after the windows update, it didn't register the D drive, and haven't been able to get it to register it since.. I reformatted C Drive hoping it would register it after the new install but didn't.. Can't find it in bios..

The system works fine, expect for having to have windows disc in it to boot, but don't mind that, just need the D Drive back.. Soz for for nubness..

But yeah D Drive wasn't touch, only reformatted C Drive..

 

[elel]

I didn't realize that you couldn't find it in the BIOS. Are you sure that you could see something before in bios, and now you can't? That is, you know all places to look? (I ask this because my asus mobo has boot device selector which allows you to set your boot drive. But only the primary hard drive shows up there, so you have to go to the hard drive selection menu to make sure that you are seeing everything) I'll still give you what I was thinking, just to check. Open control panel (in start menu) -> performance and maintenance -> administrative tools -> computer management. You can probably also find a link to this tool by searching in the help and support center (under help in the start menu) but that isn't working on my windows box right now so I couldn't try. Once you have that tool open, click on the storage option. That will bring up a graphical list of all disk drives connected to your computer right now. If your missing drive shows up here there is every hope of an easy recovery (I just have to find out how ) If not, I believe that this is a conclusive demonstration that windows is not aware of the drive.