Can't access hard drive

Im having a problem that I've had no luck fixing, and Im hoping someone here can help.

I cant access my E: drive, which is my slave drive. It is used for storage.

When trying to access it, I get the error message:


E:\ is not accessible. The wrong diskette is in the drive. Insert (Volume Serial Number: ) into drive E:\.


I also took the hard drive and placed it into an external hard-drive enclosure then hooked it up through a usb cord. Same problem. Tried it on a different computer, same problem.

Does anyone have any idea what would be wrong? I have a lot of data on there that I would hate to lose, and I'd be absolutely crushed if I can get it back.

The drive in question is a 250GB Seagate model number ST3250620A. It is an IDE drive.

Any help? Im dying here. :cry

 

Something happened to the volume header of the drive. Try this: plug in the drive (either as a USB or hook it up as a slave) and right click My Computer (I'm assuming Windows XP) and select 'Manage'. Then select 'Disk Management'. In the lower left pane, it should show the drive even if it isn't accessible. You might have to scroll down a bit. If it's listed, right click in the open area (see screen shot below) and select 'Change drive letter and path'. Follow the on screen prompts and assign the drive a new letter; anything but E: should be OK. Let us know how it turns out: If you run in to any problems, or if it works, be sure to let us know!

 

:-o
OOOOOPPSSSS!!!
This should read "... in the lower right pane ..."

rolleyes My bad :innocent Sorry....

 

Alright, I changed the drive letter to Z:, but I still have the same problem. Also, when viewing the drive in disk management, it doesnt show that the disk is formatted. And when checking the properties, it shows it as RAW. Im guessing this isnt good.

 

Okay

So after dealing with this problem (and a huge headache), I decided to just use a recovery program and grab all my data off the drive. This was an easy yet long process.

I guess now I'll wipe the drive and format it.

Thanks for the help, dlb.