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Windows XP and 300GB Seagate Hard Drive

K

k900

Senior member
Hey guys, I have two hard drives, a 120gb maxtor(primary) and a 300gb seagate(slave). Last time I reinstalled windowsxp it could not detect the 300gb drive until I installed seagates software. However, when I installed seagates software, it automatically formatted the drive, without giving me a choice or warning or anything. I'm about to reinstall windows again, but how can I prevent this from happening?

Thanks,
Kevin
 
WAIT, don't do ANYTHING. If you need to salvage the data on that drive you still can. I would recommend using DIY Data Recovery's iRecover. As long as you don't do anything else to the drive you should be able to restore it.

WHAT Seagate software did you install? Their Disk Manager? Trust me you don't want to use a disk manager. Disk Managers are BAD. They are written to the boot sectors of the drive and CANNOT BE REMOVED EXCEPT WITH THE UTILITY THAT INSTALLED THEM. Even a complete wipe of the drive will not remove it, and you'll have problems if you ever format that drive again without it.

The only reason you needed to use the disk manager is because your HDD controller doesn't support a drive that size. You should instead go buy an add-on controller that DOES support a drive that size. You need to uninstall the disk manager from that drive first.

Hope this helps...

 
thanks, this was months ago when I formatted it, so I don't care about the data anymore.

But there's no way to do this without purchasing another piece of hardware? Is there some other program I can use that won't format it again?

Thanks for your help.
 
Don't write anything to the drive, for one thing.

Next, download the R-studio demo to another hard drive and run the setup. Have it scan the drive (this can take many hours for a full scan) and see what it finds. The demo only lets you recover files under 64KB, so test it on a few small files. If they're intact, pay for R-studio, and then recover the drive's contents. It's $80 for the full version, or $50 each for NTFS or FAT versions, if you want to save a bit of money.
 
thanks but I don't care about saving what was on there, I care about preventing it from happening next time I reinstall windows
 
The seagate software shouldn't format it if all it did was put the disc manager on it. I suspect you opted to use the "New OS" install option in the seagate wizard and it "Assumed" you wanted to wipe the drive and create a new partition. You should be able to override this next time. Read the menu options CAREFULLY. You should be able to install and uninstall the disk manager software without formatting anything. Usually that's in the "Advanced" menu options.

Once the disk manager is on the drive, you don't need to install it again. It's on for life until you use the same utility to remove it. BUT trust me you do not want it.

For one thing, you usually CAN'T boot from a floppy or CD if you have a disk manager installed. You need to press a special key combination to load the disk manager first and then allow the computer to load from a floppy or a CD (because disk manager replaces the BIOS in the built-in disk controller). This is awkward as hell, plus it's ABSURDLY easy to accidently boot without disk manager installed and then corrupt the drive.

Also if disk manager EVER becomes corrupt, your data could be inaccessible.

Disk managers are a BAD idea. You're better off using an add-on controller like this one: http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102007

BUT FIRST check your mobo manufactuer's website and see if your mobo will support large drives (48bit LBA) if you update the the BIOS.

If you can't figure it out, post your motherboard brand and model and someone will look it up for you.


 
I have a Shuttle AN35N Ultra, and I couldn't find any mention of 48bit LBA or large hard drive support on Shuttles site. I previously had flashed the bios to the newest version, and there has not been a newer one released. When I go into the bios, it recognizes the drive as a 300gb drive, its just that it doesn't appear in windows after a fresh install.
 
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