I have 2 HD's installed on my computer, a terabyte and a 500 GB one both SATA.  The terabyte one is the one with the OS on it, running Windows 7 64 bit.  The other HD is used for storage, and has mostly media on it.

I can no longer see the drive icon in "My computer" anymore, it is completely gone.  I am trying to run data recovery software however they are not able to detect it as well. I have tried using "File Recovery for Windows" which is a Seagate program.  I have also tried to use "FILERECOVERY PROFESSIONAL".

In Device Manager under "Storage controllers" there is a yellow icon under "AFY4487G IDE controller" which I am guessing is the missing HD? There is also a "JMicron JMB36X controller" that seems to be running fine.

Double clicking on the yellow icon will display a dialog box with the error message :

Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware.  The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39).

I am running a Gateway FX6802 computer with these specs :
http://www.gateway.com/product_spec.php?product_recid=529668360

I tried searching on Google for error code 39 and some forums say to uninstall the driver, re-boot and then upon rebooting scan for hardware changes from within device manager.

When I tried to do this, my computer took a long time to reboot, a good 2-3 mins compared to 30 secs normally.  Upon running device manager again, and trying to "scan for hardware changes" I still see the IDE controller with a yellow exclamation mark and an error code 39, and also the hard drive icon is not in "My Computer"

I am not sure how to proceed.  I am trying to recover the data without losing it. Can anyone help?

 

Sounds like a corrupt driver issue to me...

also does your Gateway sport a removable HDD? if so take a look at: http://support.gateway.com/s/issues/150205091.shtml

the problem may be that the drive, if in the Removable Tray, is not getting good enough contact or is slightly askew, it may also throw the above error code...

since I don't know what mainboard is in that beast, I would trace the cable that is attached to the working (1TB) HDD, there should be other SATA ports... now attach the SATA cable that is attached to the 500GB drive to one of those next to the 1TB... or move it to the JMicron controller plugs, these should be located separately from the others...

keep us posted...

Ben
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