system restore console doesn't assign drive letter to driv..

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

Today I discovered my machine had hung with various errors on-screen
about not being able to access files on the disk (.dlls of running
programs). I had to power cycle the machine, and thereafter it wouldn't
boot into windows (it freezes at the point where it would normally read
the MBR and start XP booting proper). Note: the BIOS could see all the
hard disks still...

So I ran the XP recovery console from the XP install CD, hoping to check
my disks and maybe running the fix for MBR and/or boot sector...
Only I have two problems at this point:

1) only one of my disks appears - the IDE disk. The other is a SATA
drive. Does the recovery console have the drivers for seeing a SATA
drive? (The BIOS can still see the SATA drive so at least that's something)

2) The IDE disk doesn't have a drive letter assigned. If I type 'map'
at the recovery console, I get this output:

? 117796MB \Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
A: \Device\Floppy0
E: \Device\CdRom0
F: \Device\CdRom1

The '?' is where a drive letter should normally appear!

When I run 'diskpart' at the console, I see the following:

117797MB Disk0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
-: Partition1 [DynamicVolume] 117797 MB (0 MB free)

unknown disk
(There is no disk in this drive)

unknown disk
(There is no disk in this drive)

And again, no drive letter: '-' appears where the drive letter should
appear. I am slightly mystified by '0 MB free' as well because this
drive has at least 6gigs free.

Any ideas with getting a drive letter assigned? Or with any other way to
proceed? (I'm downloading knoppix and I'll boot with that and see what
that reveals...)

(Btw I ran spinRite 6.0 from a boot CD to check my disks, and it could
see both the IDE and the SATA, and do scans on them!)

thanks
alex