Data loss on drive exceeding 137GB limit?

[sygyzy]

I purchased this 300GB PATA drive about 2 months ago. I filled it up with about 160 GB of data. I had it running on my old computer. Recently I built a new system and installed a Promise ATA100 PCI card into it and connected the ST3300622A to it. I noticed upon booting up, it was detected as a 137GB (roughly). Note: At this time I was unaware of the 137GB limitation of the interface. Upon entering Windows, I noticed again, the drive was listed only as 137GB and My Computer and Windows Explorer were not letting me access it, claiming it was not formatted. In Computer Management | Disk Management, it showed up but again, was not usable. I right clicked on the partition and saw that I could select "Make Active",
and I did so. Upon reading about the limitation of the ATA100 card, I purchased a new one from Promise, this time a ATA133. Installed the card and connected the drive to it and now the drive shows up as 300GB during bootup (as detected by the card). However, in Windows, it now shows up as a 128GB Active Partition, plus a 151.46GB Unallocated Partition. Not only that, but it claims it's unformatted and I cannot access it in anyway. Either way, I have lost over 160GB worth of data and I am not sure what to do. Did merely connecting it to the ATA100 card somehow corrupt the drive?

What can I do to restore my data?

 

[RebateMonger]

A couple of questions:

1) Was the old computer (where the PATA drive was located) also XP?
2) Is the drive formatted FAT32 or NTFS?
3) Is your current version of XP (I'm ASSUMING XP...you didn't say) RTM, SP1, or SP2?

 

[sygyzy]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
A couple of questions:

1) Was the old computer (where the PATA drive was located) also XP?
2) Is the drive formatted FAT32 or NTFS?
3) Is your current version of XP (I'm ASSUMING XP...you didn't say) RTM, SP1, or SP2?

1. Yes, it was also XP.
2. The drive is formatted as NTFS
3. The current version of Windows is XP SP2.

Can you help?

 

[Laputa]

Well, don't write anything additional to the drive or the data may get overwritten or gets zero out. YHPM!

 

[RPDP]

try out the 48-bit lba registry entry tool from seagate...

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/utils.html

Windows XP Service Pack 1 and Windows 2000 Service Pack 3 operating systems, or higher, are required to support ATA disc drives larger than 137GB. The registry setting EnableBigLBA needs to be set after the proper level service pack is installed.