Sudden Hard Drive Error

[Evan Bender]

After deciding to sell my computer, I went and bought a
120gig western digital HDD to back all of my files up on.
After doing so, I ran it for a couple weeks and
everything worked fine. Once I sold the computer, I stuck
the drive on my new computer and it detected it in the
bios fine. When I went into windows, it showed the drive
in my computer, but when I clicked on it, it gave me the
error "The disk in drive D is not formatted, do you want
to format now" Both computers were running XP, and I've
been able to stick on other hard drives before. I've
tried it on two other computers as well and get the same
error. I have alot of important files on the hard drive
and any help would be appreciated. I have tried to check
for the files in DOS and get an error saying "the drive
does not contain a recognized file system". I have also
gone into windows disk manager, and it shows the drive,
but under the file system tab it is blank. I have
contacted the manufacturer, but they have been able to
give me no help as well. The last thing I did was run the
error software from the manufacturer and no errors were
detected. Thank you so much for any help.
Evan

[Mark S.]

"Evan Bender" > wrote in message
...
> After deciding to sell my computer, I went and bought a
> 120gig western digital HDD to back all of my files up on.
> After doing so, I ran it for a couple weeks and
> everything worked fine. Once I sold the computer, I stuck
> the drive on my new computer and it detected it in the
> bios fine. When I went into windows, it showed the drive
> in my computer, but when I clicked on it, it gave me the
> error "The disk in drive D is not formatted, do you want
> to format now" Both computers were running XP, and I've
> been able to stick on other hard drives before. I've
> tried it on two other computers as well and get the same
> error. I have alot of important files on the hard drive
> and any help would be appreciated. I have tried to check
> for the files in DOS and get an error saying "the drive
> does not contain a recognized file system". I have also
> gone into windows disk manager, and it shows the drive,
> but under the file system tab it is blank. I have
> contacted the manufacturer, but they have been able to
> give me no help as well. The last thing I did was run the
> error software from the manufacturer and no errors were
> detected. Thank you so much for any help.
> Evan

Just a guess here, but perhaps when you put the new drive in your old
computer, you formatted it using a drive overlay cecause your old BIOS did
not support such a large drive? And now your new computer is not using a
drive overlay and cannot see the 120g WD drive.

MarkS

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

If that's the case, he's up the creek without a paddle. Time to send the
drive out to a recovery company. They will sell him a new drive of equal
capacity and recover the files to that drive. Then they will return both
drives. It "will" be expensive!

"Mark S." > wrote in message
...
>
> "Evan Bender" > wrote in message
> ...
> > After deciding to sell my computer, I went and bought a
> > 120gig western digital HDD to back all of my files up on.
> > After doing so, I ran it for a couple weeks and
> > everything worked fine. Once I sold the computer, I stuck
> > the drive on my new computer and it detected it in the
> > bios fine. When I went into windows, it showed the drive
> > in my computer, but when I clicked on it, it gave me the
> > error "The disk in drive D is not formatted, do you want
> > to format now" Both computers were running XP, and I've
> > been able to stick on other hard drives before. I've
> > tried it on two other computers as well and get the same
> > error. I have alot of important files on the hard drive
> > and any help would be appreciated. I have tried to check
> > for the files in DOS and get an error saying "the drive
> > does not contain a recognized file system". I have also
> > gone into windows disk manager, and it shows the drive,
> > but under the file system tab it is blank. I have
> > contacted the manufacturer, but they have been able to
> > give me no help as well. The last thing I did was run the
> > error software from the manufacturer and no errors were
> > detected. Thank you so much for any help.
> > Evan
>
> Just a guess here, but perhaps when you put the new drive in your old
> computer, you formatted it using a drive overlay cecause your old BIOS did
> not support such a large drive? And now your new computer is not using a
> drive overlay and cannot see the 120g WD drive.
>
> MarkS
>
>

[Ron]

Evan...what was the MAST/SLAV and PRI/SEC configuration of the drive in the
old comp? I'm betting it was a SLAV on either the PRI or the SEC channel.
Yes? And now where is it positioned in the new comp? I ask because
sometimes the jumper settings are*really* important on WD drives.

Please post a follow-up.
Ron