Computer Crash Killed My Drives

The computer was always on a KVM switch.

Besides, I hooked up both drives to 2 different computer and had the same results.

In fact, upon your recommendation, I just hooked up the USB Maxtor to a 3rd machine NOT on a KVM. Same problem. No drive shows up.

With the external drive attached to the computer that recognized it. Go to  disk management. To get there click START-->RUN  type in "diskmgmt.msc" without the quotes. In here see if the drive is recognized and given a drive letter.

Yes it's there! I see it but it's unallocated. What the heck happened??? All my backups were on here! Do you have any idea how this could have happened? What could the "broken" computer have done to my drives? Is there a way to recover the data without sending them to a data recovery center?

if it's unallocated.. probably needs a

fix /mbr

Here's instructions that mention W2k.. but applies to XP as well.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q229716/

Am I supposed to do this on the original "broken" computer?

I have now set up a new computer with XP. The original "broken" one is still sitting here. It has W2K, not XP.

Please tell me what to do. Do I perform the fix /mbr on the old computer?

Thanks.

If your important data is on the external, I would concetrate on that first. Here is a link to the microsoft article to give it a drive letter http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297694/en-us

Well the internal drive is important too. Can I intall it into my new computer and do the fix /MBR on it there? Do you think I'll get both drives back to life and get the info off of them?

The fix/mbr solution is only used for a bootable drive, and since you now have another computer up and running you should try to access them from that computer rather than from a questionable computer that may have problems.
If you are putting the drives in another computer then you will have to jumper them  properly to be seen. Are they ide drives or SATA drives?

I just reread the question and the installation of norton systemworks may be at work here. Did you use any part of this program prior to your problem coming up.

The only thing I did with SYstemworks prior to the crash is set it up on my computer and update via Live Update. I did half of a scan but decided to stop due to time constraints.

Please explain to me how I can get the data back. One drive is USB external and the other is an IDE internal. Do I just hook it up as the slave drive inside? And then what? Please help. THanks!

ROb

Thats just what you do. Set the drive as a slave drive setting your jumpers properly on both master and slave,and putting the drive on the middle connector on the cable.

in case you need recovery soft, here some links (most prefer Getdataback)
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/collection/0,collid,1295,00.asp            Free Recovery
http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm                              Spinrite
http://www.runtime.org/                                    GetDataBack
http://www.stellarinfo.com/                                    Stellar
http://www.bitmart.net/                                    Restorer 2000
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html                        Restoration
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/activeundelete.html                  Active undelete
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm                  pc Inspector
http://www.handyrecovery.com/download.shtml                        Handy Recovery
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/smartrecovery.html                  flash recovery
http://www.ontrack.com/                                    ontrack
http://www.ontrack.com/easyrecoveryprofessional/                  Easy Recovery
http://www.cgsecurity.org                                    Test Disk + utils
http://www.z-a-recovery.com/setup.exe                        zero assumption
http://www.stompsoft.com/recoverlostdata.html                        Recover Lost Data
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/                              RecoverMyFiles
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11-1051391.html#            Disk Commander
http://us.mcafee.com/root/package.asp?pkgid=105                  EasyRecovery
http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/10031                        VirtualLab Data Recover

have you tried booting with the boot cd, entering recovery mode, & trying fixboot then fixmbr?  It is very possible that NSysWks was accessing all drives on your system in order to work with them.  Stopping & shutting down may have corrupted your partition info.

Sparkmaker: I did hook it up as a slave drive. It does not show up as a drive. How do I get the info off of it if it does not show up? It's as if the drive is not there. I have set up many computer with 2 internal drives, so I'm familiar with setting up masters and slaves, so that's not the problem. They are set up correctly. The problem is that the drive just doesn't show up. Is the drive dead? But how could both the internal and external drives be dead?

The external is hooked up now but only shows up in Disk Manager as an unallocated drive.

What do I do here? How can I get these drive recognized by Windows so that I can get the data off of them?

Friar Tuk:  I have never used the recovery mode. I have the Windows 2K CD. How do I do it?

As far as the slaved ide it sounds like it bit the bullet. Can you see it in the bios.

The Other issue with the external, in the disk manager right click on the drive and try to allocate a drive letter for it. If you know what letter it was given in the original computer, that would be my choice.

That would be bad if the internal is dead. I guess there's not much I can do about it.

So if it doesn't show up in the bios, it's totally dead?

External: I'm in Disk Manager now. The only options when I right click on it are Properties or New Partition. It doesn't offer the option to assign the drive letter. I'm afraid if I create a new partition it will just blank the drive. What should I do?

Don't do anything, partitioning will destroy data.

So I'm screwed?

OR...refer to the FIRST comment of the thread... :-)

here ya go noob23

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/229716/en-us      "2k recovery console"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301645/en-us      "2k how to use recovery console on pc that doesn't start"

@FriarTuk-->If the hard drive isn't seen by the BIOS, how can the recovery console help?

hey noob, what's the status?