Hard Drives Lost

originally working on system w/2 hard drives, using xp home. system crashed , and couldnt reboot. replaced both hard drives with one new drive and reinstalled windows. system now running. reinstalled my former “c” drive as a slave. device manager sees drive and says its ok, but no letter assigned to it. tried the same with my former secondary hd and same occured.
is there any way i can get a drive letter assigned to the drives , so i can get data off them. if that cant be done, is there any way to get data off them. appreciate any help