Weird HD problem....

[Thien2810]

Hi eveyone,

My maxtor 75gb SLAVE drive drive started to produce an irritating whining noise, and fearful of disk failure, I moved all my files over to my WD 250gb MASTER drive. Then found the 1st weird problem...

#1) Moved ALL files over to WD drive, but maxtor drive properties show that 12gb is occupied? Have set the view to show hidden files, but still can't see what is taking up that space.

Next, I tried to rename my drive letters to the proper one. When I first install XP Pro on my system back then, I guess i must have missed a step and name my WD master as F:/. Now I tried to change it to C:/, but said that windows cannot change the boot drive.

I googled around and guess the problem was that the master/volume boot files required to start up windows was located in my Maxtor drive (D:/ by the way). I sort of confirmed this when I disconnected the maxtor drive to shut it up....and windows cannot start, asking me to insert a boot disk. Now got to know that windows may install the files it needs on 2 different drives...go figure....

So I proceed to disconnect the maxtor and tried to use XP setup to repair (not the repair console, but the one where you have to enter setup first.) Then found another weird stuff,

#2) It states that my WD drive is EMPTY and not formatted...when I have 130 gb of data, along with windows folder in it. And the repair option doesn't show up. The only option is to reformat the drive and do a clean install, which I cannot as my files are still there.

So I reconnected my Maxtor drive, and this time windows found it to be an NTSF drive, which is correct, but my WD drive is still listed as empty and not formatted...

Any advice on this? I need to fix this up without reformating as I do not have another drive and my Maxtor is definitely not safe and not enough to store all the data I need.

 

[marulee]

Check the manufactor's HD jumper settings.
Make sure you selected the settings correctly since there are serveral options!

 

[amdskip]

I would advise going and getting another hard drive. Either install windows on it (don't have any other drive hooked up) or format it using another computer. You are most likely going to need some recovery software which usually costs $50 and up. There may be a manual way to go about this but you sure do have a mess.

Be careful and don't make decisions too quickly while doing this.

 

[xgsound]

Some drives have a"master" and a "master with slave" jumper setting.

If the Winxp setup CD is pre SP1 it cannot recognize the 250GB drive properly when you boot from the XP CD. A "slipstreamed xp with SP1 or SP2" CD could read the +127 GB disks.

You say after you reconnected the Maxtor it shows as NTFS and the WD shows as unformatted. What did you boot from when you got this result?

DO NOT write to the drive you want data from. Your best bet to recover data is to slave the drive to a working xp SP1 or higher system and use the procedures and programs (some free) discribed here. http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=32&threadid=1687590&arctab=y

If that can't be done, try the "Ultimate boot cd for windows" linked to in the above link. That is a bootable windows cd that gives some recovery, diagnostic, and burning capabilities.

Hope you can unravel this problem,
Jim

 

[Thien2810]

Thanks for the quick reply everyone!

I am currently using SP2, and I think I misrepresented my problem...Both my HDs are still working and windows boots up just fine, its just that I want to remove the maxtor disk to get rid of the whining noise and prevent hard disk failure.

I also want to boot XP from my F:/ alone, which I cannot as I need to have my Maxtor HD connected. This also means that if my Maxtor fails, I would not be able to start XP at all.

Some drives have a"master" and a "master with slave" jumper setting.

Yep, the jumper settings should be correct, as my comp stated that correctly in bios at startup.

You say after you reconnected the Maxtor it shows as NTFS and the WD shows as unformatted. What did you boot from when you got this result?

Yeah, correct, but how do you find out where it boots up from? Not sure, my boot.ini states the following:

"[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect"

disk(0) refers to my WD HD, according to what is stated at Disk Management, under Computer Management. So this should mean that my WD disk is holding the windows files right? But why do I have those problems I stated in my first post...

I have read that its possible to reinstall XP's master boot records onto the F:/ simply by disconnecting my Maxtor drive and using Repair Install. I tried that, but the repair option does not come up, along with the problems stated in the first post.

BTW, if I create a slipstreamed XP SP2, will my comp still recognise my copy of XP as legitimate? I roughly know how to do it, have visited Elder Geeks before. Also, can you slipstream all the updates released after SP2?

I really hope to be able to just repair my XP instead of reformating it. I know the later practically solves all problems but I do not have the time at the moment.

 

[amdskip]

Backup to a new hard drive and start over. Why risk your data?