Unrecognized auxiliary hard drive

[petie01]

I have a Maxtor 6E040L0 40 GB as a second internal hard drive in my Dell Dimension XPS T600 computer, running a Windows XP home version operating system from the main 120 GB drive.

After performing a clean re-install of XP, I could not access, and my computer would not recognize the auxiliary drive.

I tried to solve the problem in the Computer Management and Device Manager modules. When I did so, I found that the Maxtor drive was not only visible in Device Manager, but also that it was regarded as “working properly”, while, at the same time, it remained invisible in the Computer Management module. For what its worth, the Maxtor drive is still recognized by the BIOS.

All attempts to troubleshoot the Maxtor drive in the Properties section of Device Manager proved futile. Since I have some critical files on the Maxtor drive, I would greatly appreciate suggestions as to how I may access them.

[-pops-]

During your work on the machine, have you at any time disconnected the problem drive? The reason I ask is that I dealt with a similar sounding problem once in which the 40 pin connector had been taken off and, when replaced, it was moved one set of pins askew. It showed up in Disk Management but failed to appear anywhere else. Reconnecting solved the problem.

If it not that, you could try removing the drive and connecting to your machine via a USB converter. That, at least, should allow you to recover your files. The converters are not particularly expensive and I have several - I find them invaluable. Click here

[petie01]

Thanks loads, pops. I think the converter will solve my problem. Appreciate your assistance

petie01

[petie01]

Thanks loads, pops. I think the converter will solve my problem. Appreciate your assistance

petie01

For future reference, you might recommend the following:

The use of TestDisk, a freeware data recovery utility, which can be downloaded at http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Download. With this little gem, it took me less than 30 mins (including downloading) to completely restore my "lost" drive.

Thanks, again, for addressing the issue.