Question about 2nd hardrive that I can't get data off of

[muthabored]

I already have a 40GB Western Digital HDD in my PC (Windows XP Home) and I've installed a 60GB Quantum Fireball HDD on the secondary IDE so that I can retreive data from it (HDD has Windows Me on it but the OS crashed and I want to get a friend's pictures, documents, and other files off of it). When I booted the PC, I went into the setup and the BIOS sees it. After loading XP, the drive was found and even shows up in My Computer. The problem is that when I attempt to access it, I receive: "The drive is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?" Well, I don't want to format it (for obvious reasons...at least until I get off of it what I need). Is this a file format issue? My drive (Western Dig) was formatted for NTFS but under Computer Management it doesn't give a file format for this drive (Quantum Fireball) and it also indicates that 100% of the drive space is available (how so if there's an OS and other software and files on it). Any suggestions or does this point to flat out drive failure?

 

[micker377]

Click on "My Computer" and see if it can "see" both harddrives. If so, "properties" should tell you what format the disks are. Another possibility is that the "bad" drive has some sort of "overlay" on it. Boot with a Win98 disk and use fdisk to view the partitions. If it is a "fat32", it will read. If it is NTFS (or overlay), it will say "non-dos partition".

 

[muthabored]

I can see both harddrives in My Computer and in the BIOS. Unfortunately, when I right-click on the 2nd drive (the Quantum drive) it won't let me view the properties (I get a quick hour glass and then nothing). I booted with a Windows 98 disk and fdisk shows the partition as FAT32.
I'm now getting an error: D: is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect. I also tried putting the drive in a PC that has a drive with W2K on it and it slows the PC down considerable (like it does mine when I had it slaved).

I'm wondering if this means that the drive is damaged?
If so, is there ANY way that I can get the data off of it

 

[micker377]

You should be able to put the hard drive (alone) in the computer - set as master. Make sure the BIOS can recognize it. Boot with the floppy. Watch the boot process, it will tell you: "System Tools on Drive X". When the A: prompt comes up, try to go to the next drive letter. It should be the hard drive in question, if not try the next drive letter. If the drive files can't be recognized, you have serious problems. Contact the manufacturer of the "bad" drive and download the diagnostic program to check the drive.