2nd hd problem

Hi. Today I had a problem with a virus wiping out my system... so i had to end up formatting everything and starting new.

The problem is, the second hard drive which is 250gb, is seen in the device manager, BUT it doesnt show up on My Computer.

It already has about 150 gb of stuff in it. DO i have to lose all the info on it to be able to use it?

 

See how this goes.....not sure.

Control Panel / Admin Tools / Computer Management / Storage / Disc Management.

It should be there. Right click on it & see if you can 'Initialize' it.

Not sure if you will lose files. Have to try a bit of a search to see what is what.

Don't go there though as opening disc management will start the wizard to initialize the disc.

And that's if you are running XP.

 

See if anything over here is applicable.

 

hmm I tried going there. But it told me all the files in it wil be erased and hard drive will be initialized into a basic disk. Can anyone help me? There's important files on it and there must be a way to retrieve it somehow D: thanks a lot for the help.

OH by the way i just found this. im not sure if its what im looking for. but heres the link. http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/diskpart.mspx

 

can anyone please help me?

 

Go back to the device manager. Find the drive/right click/properties/troubleshoot.

See how that goes.

 

The troubleshooter is useless.

While in Computer Management as instructed earlier, right-click the drive in question, then Mark Partition as Active. (or maybe even Change Drive Letter and Paths)


*I've never done this so I can't say if you will lose the data. It will, however, usually warn you if this is the case.

 

right-clicking the drive gives me 3 choices.

1. Change to basic disc (erase files on disk)
2. Properties (not very useful..)
3. Help (doesn't help that much )

I guess I might have to erase everything... but something just doesn't sound right.. Having lose all info on a completely fine HD, without being able to retrieve it, is weird D:

 

no one can help me with this? D: