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Can't read slave drive. Windows language issue?

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by flat tap

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I will start with my newest theory as to why my slave drive can't be read, and you can say yes, and the rest is meaningless, or no, and read on.

I am trying to use a hard drive with the English version of Windows XP SP2 installed the slave of a HD with Windows XP SP2 in German. Is that a conflict that can't be resolved? If so, that is my problem, which is this:

It is detected in CMOS, I have set the jumpers, and it shows up as drive H. However trying to access drive H only leads to a long delay which ends with it asking me to format the disc, because it is not formatted (which it is, in English. I don't want to do that, I want what is on the disc.)

To answer the obvious so you don't have to ask, the master has the end of the cable, the slave drive is spinning, and I have tried to run chkdsk, however it says Datenfehler (CRC-Pr?fung)- "failure reading data (CRC-Test)" when I try to access drive H in the prompt window.

Thank you for any ideas.

5 replies

by tintoman

There is no language conflict and you should be able to boot the machine from either hard drive.
The issue you have seems to indicate that either the English drive is corrupt or you have the jumper settings set incorrectly.
If this is by any chance a Dell machine you have to have both drive set to cable select for it to work

by robo_dev

Can it be read all by itself? EG if you set that drive to master, does it boot?

What type of PC and what size of hard drive?

I would boot the system with a CD such as BART PE to attempt to access the drive?

Alternately, boot from the XP install CD and view the partition table that way.

The partition table and File allocation table characteristics are the same, German or English.

My guess is that the slave drive has multiple partitions and Windows is accessing the first physical partition on the drive, which is not formatted with FAT or NTFS...but that's a guess.

by flat tap

It is not a Dell (nameless), and the master is 16GB, the slave 30. The slave drive has only one partition. The master has NTFS for C, and FAT for D, E and F. The slave is definitely FAT or NTFS, I think NTFS, but not sure, I can not check it.

I tried to boot it as the master, but it said it couldn't read the operating system. I am not concerned with the OS though, I just want the files. I read that there could be a master boot issue, but I can't access drive H to change anything.

This hard drive was working as a master when it was removed about a year ago. It is certainly possible it was damaged a year ago when I brought it back to Germany, but I am hoping to be able to read it.

When I tried booting off my Windows CD, it locked up when loading. I have no problems with the computer when using only my master drive.

by robo_dev

First download the appropriate drive diagnostics from the drive maker (is it seagate or maxtor?)

Run the drive diags to rule out physical damage.

If it passes diags, then I would use bart pe. Possibly the file allocation table is damaged.

Download and burn a BART PE CD and see if you can access it.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

There is also a file recovery plugin for bart:
http://www.bootcd.us/BartPE_Plugin_Details/370/PC-Inspector-File-Recovery-Plugin.html

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