I have a 2nd 500 GB SATA hard drive in my Windows XP PC that Windows reports as unformatted. I had partitioned and been using it for some time as my primary data storage. I was having the typical Windows slowdown problems that normally indicate a need to reinstall Windows on my 1st hard drive. A defragmentation didn’t help, so I decided to try a quick reinstall over the existing install, but I ended up doing a complete new install to the existing directory. In the course of chasing down some puzzles, I powered down and disconnected the power and data cables from the 2nd hard drive. Once things were resolved, I reconnected the drive, but the hard drive didn’t show up in Windows Explorer. When I looked at Disk Management it showed the drive unpartitioned and with neither NTFS or FAT showing as the formatted type. I find it hard to believe the partitions and formatting got trashed.
I’ve got recovery software I can use to try to recover the data, but I’m concerned that I might be unable to recover all files. Can someone come up with a way of tweaking the disk to get the PC to recognize the drive as formatted and partitioned? I don’t have another PC that will install SATA drives, so I can’t swap into another PC to check it out.
