Invisible HDD after reinstalling XP

Hi guys, I have 2 maxtor (60gb pr master and 200gb pr slave) that worked perfectly until I reinstalled Winxp, just to see that the 200gb hdd has become invisibile in My Computer but can be seen as hardware with all its stats and is operative. But there's no way to access it.
In Disk management the hdd is "active" (italian xp version) but still no way to access its menu to change or assign a letter. In all activities the only submenu open is "cancel partition".
- primary ms -> hdd 60
- primary slave -> hdd 200 that never hosted any OS and worked perfectly until I reinstalled Winxp
Sec ms and slave set for two optical units. I tried to disconnect and reattach the ide cable but no way to settle that.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanx

Pvt Perseus75

 

I take it that when you said that you detatched the Eide cable you meant just the 200 gig, if not try that .. disconnect 200 gig then boot then 'turn off computer' reconnect the 200 and reboot. If that fails try the 200 alone then use the same procedure. If that fails try resetting your cmos to factory settings using the short pin procedure on the motherboard (cmos jumper),Look in your manual to see where 'cmos' jumper is, if not take out battery for a couple of minutes, and replace, if still not recognised try the same procedure as above as your cmos settings will be different from your initial attempts.

 

I did what u asked me to but no way to get xp recognize the hdd. Now I'll try to set it to secondary channel. I hope it will work. thanx anyway

 

well, i'm wondering if your 2nd h/d is still formatted? maybe this old thread of mine will help? you'll see a couple of screen shots as well. i wound up having to use some software to access the 2nd drive, then once i got everything off of there i then formatted it. - sos

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=57595

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm <-- PC Inspector

 

I read your thread and I have almost the same problem. The only difference is that I reinstalled XP on a 60gb hdd just to see that WindowsExplorer doesn't recognize anymore my second 200 gb hdd. Only Disk Management shows it with the correct stats and operativity.
All I want now is to access some crucial files (150gb) on my second hdd and then I could format it to recontrol it again. I'm using Ontrack Easy Recovery but it doesn't seem to be ok. Now I'll try PC Inspector as you advised me.
Thanx a lot

 

I tried to activate the Recovery Console and I could see the hdd but couldn't activate FIXMBR command cuz I don't want it to format my hdd. I couldn't neither create a new partition there. Any help? thanx

 

I got Fixmbr activated but nothing new happened as XP stills doesn't recognize the hdd200 and I found out using Ultimate bcd that the hdd200 type isn't specified (ie NTFS). what U think I sould do now? thanx