Hello everyone

I have a serious problem with my SATA drive.
Yesterday I changed almost everyhting in my comp: motherboard, CPU, RAM and graphic card I only kept my 2 HDDs, one IDE 40GB FAT32 (on which I have system) and one SATA 250GB NTFS (with precious data). They were both working fine on my previous config, they were both partitioned as disks ( C: ) and ( D: ) respectively.

After changing so many parts I was prepared to re-install WinXP. Yet, it turned out that it wasn't necessary - the old system booted successfully from my IDE drive, there was only lot of messing around with uninstalling old drivers and installing new ones.

Now - the same WinXp doesn't recognize my SATA 250GB. I know the HDD works and is correctly connected, because BIOS shows its status, numbers and capacity, even Windows Hardware Manager shows that it is present, conneted, working with no conflicts and with all latest drivers. Yet, I cannot access any data on that SATA drive - it's just not present in My Computer.

I ran Partition Magic to see what the program can see.
And that's what I found there:

250GB SATA:
DISK1 - Partition: Local Disk ( *: ), Type: Dynamic Disk, Status: None, Pri/Log: Primary

40GB IDE:
DISK2 - Partition: SYSTEM ( C: ), Type: FAT32, Status: Active, Pri/Log: Primary

Where's the problem? Why the IDE drive is recognized and the SATA isn't?

I hope I can save all the data on the SATA one... someone suggested that I should make a partition out of the SATA disk first first, but it was already a partition on my old config so I don't think that's the case...

I might add that the Disk Management console shows all the disks that I have, but the SATA disk is displayed as "unreadable". I cannot assign a drive letter to it, the only thing I can do with it is change it from dynamic to basic disk. But that would mean data deletion, so I'd like to try something else.


I'll appreciate any help

Hi fanta, welcome to the PHHF!

Your issue may very well lie with the fact that your 250gb sata hasn't been partitioned.

Check Start -> Run -> diskmgmt.msc
Look for "Disk 1" which will be the 250gb, (Disk 0 is your IDE drive).

You'll be able to right click on it, select partition/format...whatever.

thank you for reply!

well, the Disk management looks quite different:

Disk0 is not my IDE drive, but 250GB SATA, and
Disk1 is my working IDE drive.

Maybe that's the cause? Is there any way of reversing the drive numbers?

Yes, I can right-click on Drive0 (that is SATA) and convert it to Basic disk, but that would erase all the data.

Ok, no it shouldn't be the issue

If you right click on it - you should have the option to change the drive letter..."Assign Drive letter"

Sorry i'm at work with atm and can't test it as i've only got 1 physical hdd in my workstation here

unfortunately the only thing i'm able to do on the right click in Disk Management is converting the disk from Dynamic to Basic, which I think would be a solution (since my IDE working one is Basic too), but that would lead to data loss...

Are you able to take a screenshot of the right click menu?
You can post it here (ImageShack® - Hosting)