HDD data lost in XP and 2K, but ok in DOS. :o¦

[Kabral]

I'm just going nuts with this.
I installed XP 2 weeks ago in my 32Gb ATA100 Hdd (3 FAT32 partitions), and I've been using it along with my secondary 40Gb IDE Hdd (1 FAT32 partition) without ANY problems... Today, when I finished booting up, opened Windows Explorer, and the secondary Hdd was there but with no label. "Weird" - I thought... so I clicked on it, and Xp came up with the message "Disk is not formatted... Do u wish to format it?" I went 2 the roof, but the best was still 2 come. After I while, I started my machine in DOS, and when I accessed the secondary drive, it worked ok!!! Everything is there, but I can't access it in XP.
Then I tryed it on a Windows 2000 system and the same thing happened.. This is looking more and more like a HDD problem.
What should I do? Any ideas?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

I had something similar happen a short while back, with an 80Gb drive on an up-to-date board.

Like you, I nearly freaked when I thought I was going to have to lose all my data - but then I tried the disk in another machine, and it was fine in all O/Ses. I tried the same disk on a different IDE channel in the first machine, and it was also fine. Put the disk back onto the original IDE, and the problem re-appeared.

I got my motherboard changed under warranty - proved beyond a doubt that I had an IDE controller problem.

Hope it's that straightforward for you CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk