# Solved: Second hard drive not recognized in Windows Explorer



## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

Hi, 
I'm having a similar problem to the one posted here. 
I've added a second HD as the master drive on my secondary IDE cable. It is recognized under BIOS and Device Manager, but not under Windows Explorer. 
I went to Disk Management and the drive is listed as "Healthy (Active) status. It does not have a drive letter and the file system is blank. 

I'm hesitant to partition the disk though, as it is my backup disk, with all of my documents and other files on it. (This makes me extra concerned as I just noticed it also lists the drive as 100% free.) The drive was working fine on the same hardware setup a week ago. I formatted to unclutter my XP, and I'm putting all the goodies back in the case now. 

What can I do here? Is my data in fact gone? Or do I have options still? I'm getting more confused the more I figure out on this one...never a good sign, *sigh*...

Thanks,
Jon


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## qldit (Mar 18, 2005)

Good Evening barton986, hopefully the reason you might be unable to read the other drive might be due to a different format.
Plus the MBR would be different if it has changed position. 
I would be hesitant to do too much with it until you actually know what it has on it.

I usually have a look at these drives in this kind of situation with Linux, it usually sees anything that might be present and also allows access in many cases.

I imaging Bob will have another idea, I have kind of stopped playing with Windows stuff and everything is fading into memory. (thankfully!)
If no one has any better suggestions I can give you an idea of accessing with Linux. 
See what he suggests.

Was there any reason you made the second hard drive master on the secondary IDE.
I would have been inclined to keep it on the first IDE as slave. 
qldit,


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## Rich-M (May 3, 2006)

barton986 said:


> Hi,
> I'm having a similar problem to the one posted here.
> I've added a second HD as the master drive on my secondary IDE cable. It is recognized under BIOS and Device Manager, but not under Windows Explorer.
> I went to Disk Management and the drive is listed as "Healthy (Active) status. It does not have a drive letter and the file system is blank.
> ...


Looks like the drive is showing empty now. Can you put it back from where it came and see if the files are read there?


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

Rich-M said:


> Looks like the drive is showing empty now. Can you put it back from where it came and see if the files are read there?


For starters, it's generally best to start your own thread. Even though problems can seem similar, it is often difficult enough to solve one let alone two.

If your drive does not have a letter assigned, that is why it won't show up in the Windows Explorer. You need to go back into Disk Management and assign one.


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

Rich-M said:


> Looks like the drive is showing empty now. Can you put it back from where it came and see if the files are read there?


The disk originally came from the same machine that it is in now. I tried it in another machine, and got the same result.

Sorry about not posting in a new thread, I'll remember next time  . 
I tried to assign a drive letter to the drive, by going through the "right-click" menu. That option is deactivated though. Most of the other options available were also "off", the only two that showed were "partition the drive" and "properties". Does this shed any more light on my issue?


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

From the information provided it sounds like you need to create a partition and then format it. Same solution as earlier in this thread for the other person.


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## qldit (Mar 18, 2005)

Good Afternoon barton986, you are aware if you do format that drive any information that may be on it will be lost.
I would be inclined to try runing a Linux program to try to retrieve anything important if you wish to spare the time and effort doing it.

It would require you downloading a 64 meg Linux System, making a bootable live linux CD with special burn procedure, then booting the new system which does not affect anything on the current system.
There is a bit of initial learning curve with the different system to actually make it function and do what you want. It has a similar desktop to W-95 but operates quite differently underneath the hood.

If you would like to try this method click on the black one in the red triangle in the title bar of your post and request the moderator to start a new post and we can run through it.
You will need a good CD burner, ability to download 70 megs of files and a bit of care in the new learning phase. It is also an interesting introduction to using Linux.
Cheers, qldit.


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

Yes, I am very aware that formatting the drive will erase my data. I'm definitely looking to avoid that. 
I've had an interest in checking Linux out for a while now, so this seems like a perfect reason to give it a shot. 
I'm off to get this posted anew...
I appreciate this ever so much.
-Jon


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## EAFiedler (Apr 25, 2000)

Hi *barton986*

Welcome to Tech Support Guy Forums!

As requested I have split your posts off to your own thread.
Good luck


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

Thanks EA, 
Time to send this back to the top for some attention.


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

Hi, I'm back from life's business. It seems this post got lost amongst the throng. If some help could be provided with using this bootable Linux CD to examine my hard drive I would be most appreciative. Thanks a might bunch, 
Jon


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

One you can try that is free is Knoppix

http://www.knoppix.org/


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

I got Knoppix up and running the system. Thanks for pointing me to that. 
Any advice on finding data with it? I can't access the drive via the "desktop". 
I get an error of: "mount" (cannot determine the filesystem type and none was specified). 
I'm not really sure how to find any sort of tools to help with this matter. Are there any within the OS? How do I find and run them?

Thanks again, 
Jon


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

So now both Windows and the Knoppix CD can't see any files on the hard drive?


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

Yes, this is correct. Neither one can see anything.


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## Bob Cerelli (Nov 3, 2002)

Not looking too good for the hard drive. Two computers and two different operating systems and none can find anything on the drive.

At this point, you may need to try some 3rd party recovery tools. But also why I don't ever trust even one backup. Seen those fail as well.


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

Any recomendations on a good 3rd party app to try? I'm trying a few I found on CNET right now.


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

I wound up getting everything back using some recovery software. 
Thanks for the help and advice with this matter. It's great that there's a solid community like this for people to get help with problems. Keep on rawkin' in the cyber-world...

Jon


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Which software did you use? 

Also, you can mark the thread solved using the THREAD TOOLS drop down menu


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## barton986 (May 14, 2006)

It's called "GetDataBack for NTFS". I found it on download.com. It cost about $70, but it got everything back with names and directories intact so it was worth it.


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## ~Candy~ (Jan 27, 2001)

Good to know :up:

Thanks for the follow up info


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