Ok. I think between my roommates comp problem and what just happened to me i have The Grudge going on in my computer room. I was doing a routine format ( i try to every 6 months if there are no difficulties). I get windows installed and everything seems alright. just to give you a little information about my comp.
2 Sata 74 Gig raptors (Windows and Games)
2 300 gig maxtor 16mb cache drives.

ok that being said. i unplug my two maxtors so that i dont do anything retarded and whipe out my storage. i shut the computer off after windows installs, and plug the maxtors back in. I go to the disk management to import the foreign disk. then thats where my night went down in a flamming paper bag of dog poo. I see my two hard drives in the disk management, but the are unallocated. i had 4 partitions over both drives, and not a single one was there. it looks like i just put the hard drives in. is there any way i can retieve all my files.

Why are you importing a foreign disk? Are the Maxtors in a RAID array? Did you bring the driver back to the level you were last using when they worked?

the maxtors are ide and not in raid at all. when you format youre windows partition and install windows without the hard drives plugged in it should come up as a foreign disk. There should be partitions on it still with information. Its always been that way for me. i did every driver idea you can think of. no luck

hmm i always unplug my storage drives when i do a reformat but they always show up right away when i plug them back in. the only times i need to go to disk management is if i got a new hard drive and its not formatted.

ive never had to import a "foreign drive". should be able to just plug it in after word. and change drive letters aroudn if you want.

Quote: Originally Posted by Enko hmm i always unplug my storage drives when i do a reformat but they always show up right away when i plug them back in. the only times i need to go to disk management is if i got a new hard drive and its not formatted.

My thoughts also. Don't know what else to suggest. Have you tried jacking them into another computer?

I don't even know wtf a "foreign" drive is.

*walks away saying something about formatting almost weekly*

ive had both. either they automatically pop up or i have to import them. either way there's nothing there.

Try to get a copy of Knoppix . . . It's a Live distro of Linux that you can use to surf the drives. If the info is there, you can hook up another drive and copy it over. You'll just have to go through the process of letting Knoppix use Windows NTFS drivers . . . I'll track down some useful links and post them up in a bit.

And here we go . . . www.knoppix.net

Has all the info about it you could need. hope this helps!!

Check the power connections on both drives. Also check the ide cable connections. I would also try a new ide cable. Do the drives show up in the bios?

i found a program that saved my life. it scans through every sector of the hard drive and creates a temporary index file so that you can copy them onto another drive

what si that program called? might be useful

One that I've used several times is Restorer2000 It takes a while to scan(like overnight) but it saved my bacon when I accidently began a format of my storage drive. Set that puppy up on a different HD with windows and just let it scan, then grab what you want and copy it to a clear HD. Piece 'o cake! Worth the $$ just for how easy it is.

I would like to add another utility which helps to recover lost files and partition. It may give user more option to choose. Its called Stellar Phoenix FAT & NTFS - data recovery software is file & partition recovery utility that helps you in recovering your all important data lost after accidental format, virus problems, software malfunction, file/directory deletion, or even a sabotage! Performs NTFS recovery on all IDE, EIDE and SCSI disk devices.It also provide Partition recovery from FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 file systems.

Quote: Originally Posted by Test_Name I would like to add another utility which helps to recover lost files and partition. It may give user more option to choose. Its called Stellar Phoenix FAT & NTFS - data recovery software is file & partition recovery utility that helps you in recovering your all important data lost after accidental format, virus problems, software malfunction, file/directory deletion, or even a sabotage! Performs NTFS recovery on all IDE, EIDE and SCSI disk devices.It also provide Partition recovery from FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 file systems.

yeah.. a little late on response.. this issue was more then a year ago... and for the type of response its almost spam.....