Help! I cannot access my hard drive!!

~~Optimummind~~ · Jan 22, 2003, 05:01 AM

Hi,

I'm currently stressed because I cannot access my hard drive which contains important data files. Here's what happened.

Our older computer is a NEC Ready 9510 model (Intel 180MHz MMX OverDrive Processor, 128MB 70pin EDO RAM, Windows 95A). It has two HDDs in it: the primary slave with 1.2GB capacity (Conner Peripherals) and a second HDD with 2.1GB capacity (Western Digital Caviar). The trouble began when I upgraded the computer to Windows 98SE. When I upgraded to Win98SE, at first things were smooth. I could access all the previously installed programs and I could retrieve data from both HDDs.

But since the speed was so slow, I decided to back up any important data on drive C: onto D:, format drive C: (which contained the Windows system files), and re-install Windows 98SE, hoping to get a clean start and a possible speed increase.

So, I did that and installed Windows98 directly on the formatted C: drive. The BIOS will boot and detect both HDD's and other components like the CD-ROM and Floppy drives. But, when I double-click on "My Computer," I only see the C: drive and not the D drive!! I only see the D: drive at the BIOS screen where it's correctly identified.

How can I use drive D again??

Thanks in advance

Dyre Straits · Jan 22, 2003, 05:06 AM

Start up the computer in Safemode.

Go to Device Manager.

REMOVE all Hard drives.....AND even your CD ROM drives.

Reboot and let Windows redetect all your drives. It 'should' cure what ails you.

Dyre Straits

WyreTheWolf · Jan 22, 2003, 05:29 AM

Does Windows 98 recognize FAT16?

Vampyromaniac · Jan 22, 2003, 05:44 AM

yes

~~Optimummind~~ · Jan 22, 2003, 07:50 AM

New problem...I formatted my C:drive using the "NEC Ready 9510 Restore CD" and reinstalled Windows 95 (I didn't bother with Windows 98 b/c it was too buggy). Now, despite getting a successful installation message, I can't go into Windows 95. The computer keeps hanging at the screen "Getting Ready to Run Windows 95 for the First Time." Nothing happens from there on.

This really sucks. Does anyone have any ideas??

Dyre Straits · Jan 22, 2003, 08:21 AM

If you're really going to insist on installing Windows 95, then I'm all out of help for you.

Dyre Straits

merry · Jan 22, 2003, 11:18 AM

98SE is A LOT better than 95*. Do the safemode/device_manager/->delete all drives/restart trick suggested by Dyre Straits.

~~Optimummind~~ · Jan 22, 2003, 02:51 PM

I'm gonna try to install 98 again later today. I'll update on what's going on. Thanks for the help, guys.

~~Optimummind~~ · Jan 22, 2003, 11:23 PM

Here's my current status:

1. I formatted my C: drive and did a clean install of Windows 98SE.

2. Leaving the 2nd HDD disconnected, I installed first the rest of my components such as printer, video card, sound card, and modem. Win98SE recognized everything once I installed the drivers and the system is running fine.

3. Went to MS Update and downloaded & installed the critical updates and such.

4. After making sure the jumpers are correct, I reconnected the 2nd HDD as primary slave on the primary IDE channel on the MB.

5. When the computer booted, the BIOS recognized two HDDs correctly.

6. Under Win98SE, the Device Manager recognized the two drives but under "My Computer," the 2nd drive (D

couldn't be seen.

7. Following the above-mentioned advice, I rebooted to Safe Mode, removed all the HDDs as well as the CD-ROM. I rebooted and let WIn98SE recognize the components. Everything returned back to normal but the 2nd HDD was still not being detected under "My Computer" although it's there in Device Manager.

8. I tried to manually assign a drive letter to the 2nd drive under Device Manager but Windows won't let me.

9. I rebooted, used Western Digital Lifeline disk to detect the 2nd drive for errors. After performing both "Quick" and "Extended" test modes, the results were the same--nothing is wrong or amiss.

So...I'm still stumped and still in need to accessing the data on that 2nd drive.

Fortunately, my personal data are in this computer (WinXP system) I'm using to write this. However, my mother's personal and work data are on that 2nd drive for the older computer.

I have run out of ideas. Should I call Tech Support??

BTW, I had EZ-BIOS installed before I had formatted the primary HDD. I forgot why I installed it in the first place but I think it was to install the 2nd drive. But, EZ-BIOS shouldn't matter anymore, right? Before, I was using Windows 95 and Windows 95 had the partition limitation of 2.1GB. But the 2nd drive is a Western Digital 2.1GB whose size Windows98SE should be able to easily support.

eyeguy616 · Jan 23, 2003, 12:28 AM

Have you tried putting it on the other cable with the cd-rom? Try different combinations to see if it'll work.
You might want to try installing Win98 ON the 2.1gb with it being the only drive physically in the system.
You should NOT have to format the drive to install Win98 on it, just hope you have enough space on it to do.
If you don't want to do that, pop the drive into the PC you're using to make this post (if you can). If it doesn't work in there.... try booting to DOS on a bootdisk to see if it works. Hopefully you can at least get to your stuff and copy it over to another harddrive.

Good Luck.
~eyeguy616

DarkFoss · Jan 23, 2003, 12:33 AM

I had a similar problem when I switched hdds and left windows on my c drive and reformatted my d drive and installed windows on it, hoping to pull my files off afterwards. Instead of trying to rename your second hd to D try renaming your cdr first to E or whatever reboot then try renaming your second hd to D. Also try moving the jumper from slave to cable select if thats an option...If both of those options fail you can always try connecting that second hd to your main XP comp it's a bit more forgiving and burn the files to a cd and restore them that way.G'luck

tigerarmyAFI · Jan 23, 2003, 12:36 AM

can you access the drive using a dos boot disk?? try and get in that way and copy your files over to C, it looks like youre gonna have to format D to get it to detect properly.

Ryoko · Jan 23, 2003, 01:00 AM

sounds to me like the drive lost its partition info or is not formatted.

sorry to say, but it sounds like you're sol.

there is a way to find out for sure, though. create a boot disk, start the computer with that disk in, and go to drive d. if it gives you an error message, the data is toast. if it's the cdrom drive, your data is still toast. if, however, it works, you have a computer that defies microsoft, and you should be proud.

BWX · Jan 23, 2003, 01:20 AM

There are companies that work for the FBI and the CIA that can recover ANY data off of ANY hard drive, as long as the hard drive is not physically destroyed. I wonder if there are companies around that do that for private individuals? Or other businesses for that matter. If not, there should be, it would probably be a profitable business.

In your last post Ryoko, you said if it's the cdrom drive, his data was still gone, what did you mean by that? If the cdrom drive letter is D his hard drive is gone? Or just the data?

tigerarmyAFI · Jan 23, 2003, 01:23 AM

there is a neat program called GetDataBack in 2 versions 1 for NTFS and 1 for FAT, i use it myself and its fantastic, you can recover pretty much any file thats been deleted, even if the drive's been formatted!! it really does work too, and its saved my ass a few times.

Ryoko · Jan 23, 2003, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by tigerarmyAFI
there is a neat program called GetDataBack in 2 versions 1 for NTFS and 1 for FAT, i use it myself and its fantastic, you can recover pretty much any file thats been deleted, even if the drive's been formatted!! it really does work too, and its saved my ass a few times.

formatting a drive does not remove any data. it only tells the drive that it has no more data and checks for bad sectors. the same with deleted files.

Ryoko · Jan 23, 2003, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by BWX232
In your last post Ryoko, you said if it's the cdrom drive, his data was still gone, what did you mean by that? If the cdrom drive letter is D his hard drive is gone? Or just the data?

if dos doesn't allocate a drive letter for a drive, there are 2 reasons:

1. the drive is dead and is not recognised by the bios.

2. the drive has no readable partitions on it.

if dos sees the letter but you can't access it because dos gives you an error, the partition has no valid formatted data.

there are programs that can retrieve deleted data, but nothing provided by windows.

eyeguy616 · Jan 23, 2003, 05:34 AM

There is an option to recover the Master Boot Records, but you have to have the Windows XP cd and be able to get into the Recovery Console. To be safe, I'd only have the affected harddrive in with the cd-rom. Hopefully it's assigned a letter, in which case you type 'fixmbr' and cross your fingers. Since (I'm guessing) your drive only has one partition there shouldn't be any problems, but it does give a warning that data may be lost. I had to use this on my current hd (60gb) after it refused to boot one day o_O; Anyway, there are a whole slew of things that could be wrong, hopefully some of the suggestions posted will work.

~eyeguy616

~~Optimummind~~ · Jan 23, 2003, 06:46 AM

Okay, the problem has been resolved! Here's what I did:

1. I took out the 2nd drive from my old computer and put it in as the secondary slave on my other computer (see sig).

2. My other computer recognized the drive and I was able to access it from "My Computers" under WinXP. I used Nero to copy the contents of the whole HDD into a CD-R disc.

3. I took the 2nd drive back into the older computer as the primary slave. Using Western Digital's Lifeline/Dataguard boot disk, I accessed the 2nd drive and formatted it.

4. Upon reboot, the 2nd drive was recognized by both the BIOS and "My Computer" under Win98SE. Yes!!!!!

5. I put the CD-R disc with the backup data on it and transferred all the files into the D: drive as it was originally.

Now, all the data has been recovered and my two-days strife has ended...

Thanks everyone for your input!!

Dyre Straits · Jan 23, 2003, 03:46 PM

Congratulations!!

I know exactly what you feel like, too.

Jan 22, 2003, 05:01 AM	#1
~~Optimummind~~ Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Orange, California Posts: 632 Rep Power: 0	Help! I cannot access my hard drive!! Hi, I'm currently stressed because I cannot access my hard drive which contains important data files. Here's what happened. Our older computer is a NEC Ready 9510 model (Intel 180MHz MMX OverDrive Processor, 128MB 70pin EDO RAM, Windows 95A). It has two HDDs in it: the primary slave with 1.2GB capacity (Conner Peripherals) and a second HDD with 2.1GB capacity (Western Digital Caviar). The trouble began when I upgraded the computer to Windows 98SE. When I upgraded to Win98SE, at first things were smooth. I could access all the previously installed programs and I could retrieve data from both HDDs. But since the speed was so slow, I decided to back up any important data on drive C: onto D:, format drive C: (which contained the Windows system files), and re-install Windows 98SE, hoping to get a clean start and a possible speed increase. So, I did that and installed Windows98 directly on the formatted C: drive. The BIOS will boot and detect both HDD's and other components like the CD-ROM and Floppy drives. But, when I double-click on "My Computer," I only see the C: drive and not the D drive!! I only see the D: drive at the BIOS screen where it's correctly identified. How can I use drive D again?? Thanks in advance

Jan 22, 2003, 11:18 AM	#7
merry gargouille Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Posts: 962 Rep Power: 0	98SE is A LOT better than 95*. Do the safemode/device_manager/->delete all drives/restart trick suggested by Dyre Straits. __________________ There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't. ~~Leonard Cohen

Jan 23, 2003, 12:36 AM	#12
tigerarmyAFI DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: England Posts: 111 Rep Power: 0	can you access the drive using a dos boot disk?? try and get in that way and copy your files over to C, it looks like youre gonna have to format D to get it to detect properly. __________________ AMD AthlonXP 1800+ ThoroughBred B JIUHB @ 2137MHz Geforce4 Ti 4200 128Mb @ 310/600 (ASUS V8420) ABIT KX-7 333 v1.1 512Mb Micron PC2700 DDR Creative Live! 5.1 Aircooled (45c Full load)

Jan 23, 2003, 01:20 AM	#14
BWX unplugged Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: USNY Posts: 19,669 Rep Power: 110 System Specs	There are companies that work for the FBI and the CIA that can recover ANY data off of ANY hard drive, as long as the hard drive is not physically destroyed. I wonder if there are companies around that do that for private individuals? Or other businesses for that matter. If not, there should be, it would probably be a profitable business. In your last post Ryoko, you said if it's the cdrom drive, his data was still gone, what did you mean by that? If the cdrom drive letter is D his hard drive is gone? Or just the data? __________________

Jan 23, 2003, 01:23 AM	#15
tigerarmyAFI DriverHeaven Lover Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: England Posts: 111 Rep Power: 0	there is a neat program called GetDataBack in 2 versions 1 for NTFS and 1 for FAT, i use it myself and its fantastic, you can recover pretty much any file thats been deleted, even if the drive's been formatted!! it really does work too, and its saved my ass a few times. __________________ AMD AthlonXP 1800+ ThoroughBred B JIUHB @ 2137MHz Geforce4 Ti 4200 128Mb @ 310/600 (ASUS V8420) ABIT KX-7 333 v1.1 512Mb Micron PC2700 DDR Creative Live! 5.1 Aircooled (45c Full load)

Jan 22, 2003, 05:29 AM	#3
WyreTheWolf Wolfish Bastard Join Date: May 2002 Location: Cave; Ozark Mountains Posts: 2,110 Rep Power: 0	Does Windows 98 recognize FAT16?

Jan 22, 2003, 05:44 AM	#4
Vampyromaniac confutatis maledictis Join Date: May 2002 Location: somewhere dark Posts: 5,974 Rep Power: 77 System Specs	yes

Jan 22, 2003, 07:50 AM	Thread Starter #5
~~Optimummind~~ Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Orange, California Posts: 632 Rep Power: 0	New problem...I formatted my C:drive using the "NEC Ready 9510 Restore CD" and reinstalled Windows 95 (I didn't bother with Windows 98 b/c it was too buggy). Now, despite getting a successful installation message, I can't go into Windows 95. The computer keeps hanging at the screen "Getting Ready to Run Windows 95 for the First Time." Nothing happens from there on. This really sucks. Does anyone have any ideas??

Jan 22, 2003, 02:51 PM	Thread Starter #8
~~Optimummind~~ Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Orange, California Posts: 632 Rep Power: 0	I'm gonna try to install 98 again later today. I'll update on what's going on. Thanks for the help, guys.

Jan 22, 2003, 11:23 PM	Thread Starter #9
~~Optimummind~~ Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Orange, California Posts: 632 Rep Power: 0	Here's my current status: 1. I formatted my C: drive and did a clean install of Windows 98SE. 2. Leaving the 2nd HDD disconnected, I installed first the rest of my components such as printer, video card, sound card, and modem. Win98SE recognized everything once I installed the drivers and the system is running fine. 3. Went to MS Update and downloaded & installed the critical updates and such. 4. After making sure the jumpers are correct, I reconnected the 2nd HDD as primary slave on the primary IDE channel on the MB. 5. When the computer booted, the BIOS recognized two HDDs correctly. 6. Under Win98SE, the Device Manager recognized the two drives but under "My Computer," the 2nd drive (D couldn't be seen. 7. Following the above-mentioned advice, I rebooted to Safe Mode, removed all the HDDs as well as the CD-ROM. I rebooted and let WIn98SE recognize the components. Everything returned back to normal but the 2nd HDD was still not being detected under "My Computer" although it's there in Device Manager. 8. I tried to manually assign a drive letter to the 2nd drive under Device Manager but Windows won't let me. 9. I rebooted, used Western Digital Lifeline disk to detect the 2nd drive for errors. After performing both "Quick" and "Extended" test modes, the results were the same--nothing is wrong or amiss. So...I'm still stumped and still in need to accessing the data on that 2nd drive. Fortunately, my personal data are in this computer (WinXP system) I'm using to write this. However, my mother's personal and work data are on that 2nd drive for the older computer. I have run out of ideas. Should I call Tech Support?? BTW, I had EZ-BIOS installed before I had formatted the primary HDD. I forgot why I installed it in the first place but I think it was to install the 2nd drive. But, EZ-BIOS shouldn't matter anymore, right? Before, I was using Windows 95 and Windows 95 had the partition limitation of 2.1GB. But the 2nd drive is a Western Digital 2.1GB whose size Windows98SE should be able to easily support.

Jan 23, 2003, 12:28 AM	#10
eyeguy616 ZZzzzzzzzzzz........... Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 324 Rep Power: 0	Have you tried putting it on the other cable with the cd-rom? Try different combinations to see if it'll work. You might want to try installing Win98 ON the 2.1gb with it being the only drive physically in the system. You should NOT have to format the drive to install Win98 on it, just hope you have enough space on it to do. If you don't want to do that, pop the drive into the PC you're using to make this post (if you can). If it doesn't work in there.... try booting to DOS on a bootdisk to see if it works. Hopefully you can at least get to your stuff and copy it over to another harddrive. Good Luck. ~eyeguy616

Jan 23, 2003, 12:33 AM	#11
DarkFoss HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: Downers Grove IL Posts: 688 Rep Power: 0	I had a similar problem when I switched hdds and left windows on my c drive and reformatted my d drive and installed windows on it, hoping to pull my files off afterwards. Instead of trying to rename your second hd to D try renaming your cdr first to E or whatever reboot then try renaming your second hd to D. Also try moving the jumper from slave to cable select if thats an option...If both of those options fail you can always try connecting that second hd to your main XP comp it's a bit more forgiving and burn the files to a cd and restore them that way.G'luck

Jan 23, 2003, 01:00 AM	#13
Ryoko American Soldier Join Date: May 2002 Location: Williamsburg, VA Posts: 1,725 Rep Power: 0	sounds to me like the drive lost its partition info or is not formatted. sorry to say, but it sounds like you're sol. there is a way to find out for sure, though. create a boot disk, start the computer with that disk in, and go to drive d. if it gives you an error message, the data is toast. if it's the cdrom drive, your data is still toast. if, however, it works, you have a computer that defies microsoft, and you should be proud.

Jan 23, 2003, 05:34 AM	#18
eyeguy616 ZZzzzzzzzzzz........... Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Texas Posts: 324 Rep Power: 0	There is an option to recover the Master Boot Records, but you have to have the Windows XP cd and be able to get into the Recovery Console. To be safe, I'd only have the affected harddrive in with the cd-rom. Hopefully it's assigned a letter, in which case you type 'fixmbr' and cross your fingers. Since (I'm guessing) your drive only has one partition there shouldn't be any problems, but it does give a warning that data may be lost. I had to use this on my current hd (60gb) after it refused to boot one day o_O; Anyway, there are a whole slew of things that could be wrong, hopefully some of the suggestions posted will work. ~eyeguy616

Jan 23, 2003, 06:46 AM	Thread Starter #19
~~Optimummind~~ Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Orange, California Posts: 632 Rep Power: 0	Finally it works!! Okay, the problem has been resolved! Here's what I did: 1. I took out the 2nd drive from my old computer and put it in as the secondary slave on my other computer (see sig). 2. My other computer recognized the drive and I was able to access it from "My Computers" under WinXP. I used Nero to copy the contents of the whole HDD into a CD-R disc. 3. I took the 2nd drive back into the older computer as the primary slave. Using Western Digital's Lifeline/Dataguard boot disk, I accessed the 2nd drive and formatted it. 4. Upon reboot, the 2nd drive was recognized by both the BIOS and "My Computer" under Win98SE. Yes!!!!! 5. I put the CD-R disc with the backup data on it and transferred all the files into the D: drive as it was originally. Now, all the data has been recovered and my two-days strife has ended... Thanks everyone for your input!!