HELP! Computer doesn't show HD!

Ok, heres the problem.. I had a missing HAL.DLL file. I couldn't get the problem resolved at all, so I decided I would HAVE to reformat. I had 2 SATA drives (1WD250/1SG320). The WD was the main one with OS and everything and the SG was just an extra storage drive.

Now.. I didn't want to have to reformat the WD and lose everything (mind you both drives are maxed out on space). So I bought another SG500GB to load a new OS on, which I did. Now after I completed that I connected the other HDs up and made sure the SATA BIOS settings were on. Rebooted the computer but it didn't show anything but the main drive. Oddly enough it DOES show in the Device Manager under disk drives, but as far as getting it to show up in My Computer to access it, nothing.

Doe anyone have ANY advice on what to do next??

Go to Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management

From there, simply format the hard drives (quick format should be fine)

mrmetal_53 said:

Go to Control Panel --> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management

From there, simply format the hard drives (quick format should be fine)

Click to expand...

The thing is I have data on the other 2 drives that I need to keep, thus being the reason I bought a brand new HD to install the OS on.

I think the only was is to format them, but I'm not 100% sure. I would wait till more knowledgable forum-goers can lend their advice

Thanks anyway

Still haven't resolved this problem

Have you tried to FDISK /MBR?

If you've got enough space on the new drive then go ahead and run a quick format on the old one, then use a data recovery program to get your files back.(Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional works well) Unfortunately, if you see your disk in disk management and it has no partition or file system there's nothing you can do but format. But worry not, for I've yet to have a problem getting data back and I've done this to MANY drives. *Shakes his fist in anger at cheap PCI addon cards* If anyone knows of a good program that's cheap or has a 15/30 day free trial feel free to list it.

Go into disk manager and see if the drives are present and configured with drive letters.

Unless I am totally not understanding what you are saying, it sounds like you just need to assign the other drives drive letters. Sometimes Windows will not do this automatically for drives with existing info.

Under Disk Management, right click on one of the drives and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". From there you can add or change the drive letter.

Then under My Computer you should see each drive show up

courtex0 said:

If you've got enough space on the new drive then go ahead and run a quick format on the old one, then use a data recovery program to get your files back.(Ontrack EasyRecovery Professional works well) Unfortunately, if you see your disk in disk management and it has no partition or file system there's nothing you can do but format. But worry not, for I've yet to have a problem getting data back and I've done this to MANY drives. *Shakes his fist in anger at cheap PCI addon cards* If anyone knows of a good program that's cheap or has a 15/30 day free trial feel free to list it.

Click to expand...

lol, how ironic.. Before I checked this thread I ended up using OnTrack. Didn't have to delete it first or anything, it was able to see it and I just moved over the files I needed to the new HD and then I just deleted and reformated and now everything is working perfectly.

Mathemabeat said:

Unless I am totally not understanding what you are saying, it sounds like you just need to assign the other drives drive letters. Sometimes Windows will not do this automatically for drives with existing info.

Under Disk Management, right click on one of the drives and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths". From there you can add or change the drive letter.

Then under My Computer you should see each drive show up

Click to expand...

The only option given to me at the time was to delete partition, so that wasn't an option..