Second hard drive problems.

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Moxio

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After a year of thrashing my C drive, I decided to reformat. Pre-reformat, I had two accessible hard drives: My first (C drive) 80 GB, and my second 200 GB drive, partitioned into two parts (150 and 50, respectively E and F because D is my DVD drive). I was hoping that after reformatting the C drive I could access my files on my second drive (a backup of sorts).

Post-reformat, after installing all drivers and whatnot, I ventured into My Computer and noticed there was the C drive and my second hard drive in one drive: D. When I click it, instead of letting me access my files, it tells me it isn't formatted and asks me if I want to format it.

Now I'm death-scared. Have I lost everything? I had a lot of important documents and stuff on there and I'm desperate to access them.

Please help. Please.
 
[quote name='Moxio']I ventured into My Computer and noticed there was the C drive and my second hard drive in one drive: D. [/quote]

what did you back up your documents to?
 
[quote name='gaelan']what did you back up your documents to?[/QUOTE]

On my previous set up it was on the second, on my E partition.
 
I'm going to assume you had and reinstalled windows XP...

What does computer management say about the drives that are hooked up to your system?

Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Storage->Disk Management(local)

Down in the lower bar-graph section you should see three entries, two for your hard drives and one for your optical drive. It will tell you the total size of the drive and show you any partitions that exist on that drive.

That should show you if your 2nd HD is being recognized and if the partitions are still intact. If you can't interpret it, take a screenshot and post it.

Are you sure you didn't accidentally repartition it during the reinstall? How did you do the reinstallation?
 
[quote name='Moxio'] When I click it, instead of letting me access my files, it tells me it isn't formatted and asks me if I want to format it.[/QUOTE]

This would be the exact message you would get if your D: drive is formatted as NTFS and you happened to reformat your C: drive as FAT32 when it used to be NTFS. Look at the properties of C: and see if it is FAT32 or NTFS.
 
Same thing's happening to me, minus the format. Exact same thing, 200GB nonpartitioned. Just turned the PC on one day and it still shows it as being there, but asks if I want to format it. I hope the HD isn't fried, but i'm not holding out much hope.
 
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