Drive has redesignated itself as EISA!

[schen]

Not sure whether this is actually a Misc. Hardware issue or a Windows issue, so here goes. I've been in the process of moving some things around and rebuilding a couple of R52s and everything has gone well right up till it came time to put the data back onto the newly reloaded machine. I had pulled the data off and moved it an HDD using an UltraBay adapter. I checked and all the data was there.

Then I screwed up in a major way! After I had reloaded ATI chipped R52 done, I put the drive that had the data in the other (Intel chipped) machine to see if that machine would cough up the 2010 error with that drive. And although it didn't give the error on boot, it didn't do anything else either so, I pulled the drive out thinking that it was fine.

Apparently, while it was in the machine, the BIOS (I'm assuming) set that drive as an EISA partition and now I can't get a drive letter or access the data (which I'm assuming is still there since it hasn't been formatted or anything).

So, does anyone know a way to get back to my old data? Or am I just outta luck here and will simple have to delete the partition (thus destroying any data) to get the use of the drive back?

[RealBlackStuff]

First make a backup/image of that HD as-is.
Then try and boot from an XP-CD into the Repair Console, and do a Fixboot and Fixmbr?

[sjthinkpader]

You can't put it in a USB housing and get to the data?

[schen]

The drive isn't a boot drive of any kind. I was simply a regular NTFS formatted HDD that I had put in an UltraBay Slim adapter so I could move the data from one machine to a different one. Then I had a brain cramp and decided to see if it would create the 2010 error. And I never did a restore or anything on it.

Then, I pulled it out and put it back into the UBS adapter to move the data; not only do I not see the data, but the drive is seen as an EISA drive by Windows Disk Manager and it won't allocate a drive letter.

So is there any possibility that RBS's though on putting the drive into the main HDD slot (I think) and putting Windows in the optical drive to try and repair will work in this situation?

[RealBlackStuff]

AFAIK any HD has (to have) an MBR.
If you have data on it that need to be saved, you'll need a Repair Console because of the NTFS file format.
You could also try and boot from a Linux Life-CD and see if that let's you in...
If it had been FAT16 or FAT32, probably booting from a DOS diskette and running FDISK/MBR might have worked.

If the data is still there on the original HD, and you don't need the copy, perhaps try Killdisk or DBAN to fully wipe it.
You may then have to initialize it first before you format again.

[schen]

[quote="RealBlackStuff"]AFAIK any HD has (to have) an MBR.
If you have data on it that need to be saved, you'll need a Repair Console because of the NTFS file format.
You could also try and boot from a Linux Life-CD and see if that let's you in...
If it had been FAT16 or FAT32, probably booting from a DOS diskette and running FDISK/MBR might have worked.
[quote]

Yup, that makes perfect sense. I'd forgotten about DOS and the utilities on the boot disks!

I actually have a USB FDD in a box somewhere as well as a Dock II which will take a UB2K FDD, so I can do that when I get home! I'll cross my fingers that the files are still there when the MBR is fixed!


Thanks for waking up my long-term-memory RBS!

[RealBlackStuff]

DON'T try the DOS FDISK/MBR on an NTFS formatted drive!
Run the Repair Console instead, with Fixboot and Fixmbr.