Hard drive data lost?

Status
Not open for further replies.

tijon

Beta member
Messages
5
I have been using a Maxtor 160GB hard drive as a secondary storage device on my PC (as the D drive). When accessing it I would occasionally get an error message saying "device not available" or something like that. I would simply reboot and all would be well again. Now when I double click on it in "My Computer" it says "The disk in drive D is not formatted. Do you wish to format it now?". When I look at the properties it says file type is RAW, used space 0 bytes, available space 0 bytes. It appears that my hard drive has somehow un-formatted itself. Does this mean I have to re-format it? Has all the data I have on it been lost? How did this happen, and how can I keep it from happening again? I have an Athlon XP2600, 512MB of PC2700 RAM, running WinXP Pro SP1.
 
All cables are connected properly. I have disconnected & reconnected them just to be sure.
 
Great Question tijon
Im Having a simular problem in reading a maxtor drive (win 98se)
wich works very well Just installed a larger h/drive with xp/sp1 Home . when I attach the maxtor xp locates and refuses to read the drive "The disk in drive D is not formatted. Do you wish to format it now?". When I look at the properties it says file type is RAW, used space 0 bytes, available space 0 bytes.But when Rebooted with 98se the maxtor works fine ????
ANY ANSWERS TO THIS ONE WILL BE APRECIATED ALSO
 
To tijon and Collivac, both of you need to make sure that your BIOS sees the 160 GB Maxtor and correctly reports the FULL capacity of the HDD itself. Read this link and read my response towards the bottom of the thread.

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=22440

EDIT: On the other hand, if you already have a PCI ATA controller card, if your MB already has a newer BIOS that can handle that HDD w/ out a controller card, then i would check out Maxtor's website and see if they have something on their FAQ that can help you.
 
I have been using the drive on a regular basis so it has been formatted. Data has been stored on it and has been accessed frequently, without problem. The problem isn't the BIOS either. I checked that. Since I am running SP1 my XP has been reading all 160GB. This drive has been working just fine for nearly a year. I bought it last August. I don't mind reformatting it if I must, but all my MP3s and family photos were stored on that drive so I'm cringing at the thought of losing all that data. Also, any thoughts on just how the heck this happened in the first place? Oh, yeah, any solutions on how to recover my data would be greatly appreciated!
 
If you want that data recovered stop using the drive and connect it to another computer & copy your data to another place. if it still can't access your drive run data recovery software like Easy Recovery from http://www.ontrack.com/. Do a search on these programs to find one that you like or can afford.

We saw this problem before. You might be able to find the solution by using the forum search feature. not sure what keywords to use. I think it was caused by hardware physical failure OR it might have a been a virus and was fixed using FDISK\ MBR. If I remember right I think Microbell replied on that thread with a solution. my memory is vague on this.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom