SATA HD Problem, Part II

[blvtzpk]

Hi all,

I had a problem a few months ago with my new SATA drive (see here: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic28952.html)

I did get it up and running, but I've had a problem with it today.

I decided to reinstall windows xp, and refomrtted the main HD (also SATA). I got windows working again, but once more the SATA drive was no recoginised, as was the case the first time around (see earlier post).

I followed the basic instructions I was given last time around, but now this extra drive - which is now chock full of important files - comes up as being empty and unformatted. I DID NOT reformat it during any of the processes today.

Can anybody tell what is wrong, what I've done wrong, and any way to fix it so that I have access to the files on the disk???

Thanks!!!

 

[blvtzpk]

My apologies for the terrible spelling above - stress does terribel things.

I've run some checking software over the drive (now mounted as D but each time I'm told that it does not contain a recognisable file system and it needs to be formatted.

I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that the data on there is lost (unless someone else can suggest a solution).

Can anybody tell me why this happened? Did I not format it or mount correctly when I first installed it? I'd really like to know so this does not happen again...

 

[blvtzpk]

Any suggestions? My cursor is hovering over the "Format-OK" button, but I don't want to take that route if the data on the disk can be salvaged...