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HDD problem

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by lv_hunter

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Recently I had a friend update his computer with a new motherboard and he got XP home. After installation, 2 out of his 3 HDDs didnt work. The computer can see the drive sepcifications and all, but windows cant access them. Theyre not mounted nor can they be, and theyre still in fat32. The only option I have from disk management is to delete the partition, but I dont want to do that just yet.

I was mostly wondering if it soundsl ike these 2 drives are screed and cant get the data off them. Ive tried these drives on 4 different computers and each of them had the same issue. Theyre both maxtor drives.

2 replies

by thechas

Were the drives originally installed using Maxtor's Max-Blast software?

If so, they may be set up with drive / BIOS overlay software to allow an older BIOS to be "tricked" into seeing the full capacity of the drives.

Drive overlay software needs to be on the "BOOT" drive in order to access any drives that were set up with the utility.

If you suspect the drive was set up with Max-Blast, your best option is to install Max-Blast on the system, and then remove it and see if you can now access the drives.

A somewhat riskier strategy would be to set up each drive as the primary master on a test system.
Boot from a W98 startup floppy, and run the command
fdisk /mbr

The "safest" option would be to install Max-Blast on a system with both drives in place. Copy the data files.
Remove Max-Blast.
Run fdisk /mbr, and then delete ALL logical drives and partitions from the drives and start over fresh.

Chas

by glyall

check the jumper on the hard drives.
if both are set to master or slave on the same ribbon, your PC bios and windows will not see them.
change them. Det one master and the other slave or set both to select on the ribbon.
Also check all cd and/dvd drive for their jumper settings.

If you can not determine the jumpers setting, go to the manufactors site/s and check the jumpeer setting.

Good Luck

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