Serial ATA Hard Drives

[Gumbolio]

I am running WinXP Pro on an intel P4 based machine with
(2) 120GB Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA hard drives. The
first drive was partitioned at 114 GB and the second
drive with (3) 35GB (+/-) partitions. The installation
recognized both drives and saw all the partitions and all
was well until I had a bout with some viruses and lost.
As a result, I had to reinstall XP. Now it only sees
the "C" drive in windows explorer. When I use disk
management it sees the second drive, unallocated, as one
partition of 114 GB that is unpopulated. When I tried to
populate the drive, it only sees the one large partition.
The major problem here is that I use the second drive as
a backup device and have much valuable data stored on it.
Does anyone know how I can get the second drive back with
all three parititions and the data intact?

[Jim]

First, what types of partitions where on the second HD (FAT32, NTFS, etc.).

Jim


"Gumbolio" > wrote in message
...
> I am running WinXP Pro on an intel P4 based machine with
> (2) 120GB Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA hard drives. The
> first drive was partitioned at 114 GB and the second
> drive with (3) 35GB (+/-) partitions. The installation
> recognized both drives and saw all the partitions and all
> was well until I had a bout with some viruses and lost.
> As a result, I had to reinstall XP. Now it only sees
> the "C" drive in windows explorer. When I use disk
> management it sees the second drive, unallocated, as one
> partition of 114 GB that is unpopulated. When I tried to
> populate the drive, it only sees the one large partition.
> The major problem here is that I use the second drive as
> a backup device and have much valuable data stored on it.
> Does anyone know how I can get the second drive back with
> all three parititions and the data intact?

[Gumbolio]

Both drives were setup with ntfs.
>-----Original Message-----
>
>First, what types of partitions where on the second HD
(FAT32, NTFS, etc.).
>
>Jim
>
>
>"Gumbolio" > wrote in message
...
>> I am running WinXP Pro on an intel P4 based machine
with
>> (2) 120GB Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA hard drives. The
>> first drive was partitioned at 114 GB and the second
>> drive with (3) 35GB (+/-) partitions. The installation
>> recognized both drives and saw all the partitions and
all
>> was well until I had a bout with some viruses and lost.
>> As a result, I had to reinstall XP. Now it only sees
>> the "C" drive in windows explorer. When I use disk
>> management it sees the second drive, unallocated, as
one
>> partition of 114 GB that is unpopulated. When I tried
to
>> populate the drive, it only sees the one large
partition.
>> The major problem here is that I use the second drive
as
>> a backup device and have much valuable data stored on
it.
>> Does anyone know how I can get the second drive back
with
>> all three parititions and the data intact?
>
>
>.
>

[Jim]

RE: "When I use disk management it sees the second drive, unallocated, as
one partition of 114 GB that is unpopulated. When I tried to populate the
drive, it only sees the one large partition."

Not sure what "populated" means here. Initially the HD (as purchased) is
unallocated (freespace). You then define one or more partitions. Then each
partition is formatted using a specific file system type (FAT32, NTFS,
etc.). Finally, it's "populated" w/ files. So I just want to get our
terminology in-sync here so we don't end up confusing each other :)

Having had a "losing" bout w/ a virus certainly isn't good news, it wasn't
clear WHICH virus and whether the virus itself is know to trash HDs (either
the data itself or perhaps only the HD's partition table, if the latter,
it's possible to reset the partition table w/ recovery tools). Under
normal, non-virus circumstances, partitions don't just disappear, but once
you tell me a virus is involved, well..., anything is possible I suppose.
So any further comments I make have to be tempered by the POSSIBILITY that
the virus destroyed your data (unless you know for a FACT otherwise).

That said, to be frank, I never completely trust what the DM (Disk Manager)
under XP tells me. I prefer third-party, non-Windows dependent, partition
managers (extremely powerful, once you've used one, you'll wonder how you
ever lived without it). Something like Partition Magic, BootIt NG, etc.,
are all excellent. There's also Ranish Partition Manager, which I recall
being free. If you have Win98 Startup Disk around, you could boot the
command console and run fdisk on the 2nd HD. I'd like at least one more
opinion other than DM before I assumed the second HD was unallocated.

If it appears unallocated w/ these as well, then you might want to consider
partition recovery tools. If the data is still there, and it's merely a
case of a bad partition table, it may be recoverable. But it can't be done
w/o these types of special tools. If the data is worth saving, I suggest
investigating. These include services and software solutions, depending on
the severity of the problem. A search on Yahoo of partition+recovery will
return lots of results.

I would recommed NTFS.com too. They offer several products, both file and
partition recovery. They also have a bootable DOS-based NTFS reader, so
that would show us whether the NTFS partition is accessible outside Windows
and even allow you to browse the files. (see http://ntfs.com/boot-disk.htm).

HTH

Jim



"Gumbolio" > wrote in message
...
> Both drives were setup with ntfs.
> >-----Original Message-----
> >
> >First, what types of partitions where on the second HD
> (FAT32, NTFS, etc.).
> >
> >Jim
> >
> >
> >"Gumbolio" > wrote in message
> ...
> >> I am running WinXP Pro on an intel P4 based machine
> with
> >> (2) 120GB Seagate Barracuda Serial ATA hard drives. The
> >> first drive was partitioned at 114 GB and the second
> >> drive with (3) 35GB (+/-) partitions. The installation
> >> recognized both drives and saw all the partitions and
> all
> >> was well until I had a bout with some viruses and lost.
> >> As a result, I had to reinstall XP. Now it only sees
> >> the "C" drive in windows explorer. When I use disk
> >> management it sees the second drive, unallocated, as
> one
> >> partition of 114 GB that is unpopulated. When I tried
> to
> >> populate the drive, it only sees the one large
> partition.
> >> The major problem here is that I use the second drive
> as
> >> a backup device and have much valuable data stored on
> it.
> >> Does anyone know how I can get the second drive back
> with
> >> all three parititions and the data intact?
> >
> >
> >.
> >