Reinstalling XP - 2nd HD Backup Woes

Quick run down.

2 Hard drives, one (WD 160gb ata 100) is to be formatted for reinstalling windows, other(Maxtor 40gb ata 133) contains 25gb (out of 40) worth of backup data (photos text some music). Swapped Stock dell 2400 mobo for a Biostar p4m80-m4, other than the crappy dell case everything went without a hitch. Made sure backup harddrive was unplugged (didnt wanna format it on accident) formatted the os drive, installed windows and booted into it. After checking my work everything appeared working and i was excited, i shut down, plug in the other HD check it in bios. jumper and bios settings were set to slave i boot up and everything takes alot longer, after about 5-10x the usual wait time, i go to my computer and dont see the drive. Close my computer open it again and i see it, clicking on it causes my computer window to hang for a long while, double clicking does the same but it asks if i want to format the drive (NOOOOOO!!!!!). Tryed hooking the backup HD to my computer and same exact issue.

So theres the rather not quick run down. For the past day and a half i have been making a backup image of the drive using Acronis Bootable recovery software, so far its about halfway done. Acronis also mentioned while scanning the harddrive to make the image that certain sectors of the drive were unreadable (sector 400,000,000 around there).

So ive had alot of time to kill, and have been checking out other options for my problems, after reading the forums for a while ive discovered a few more options (which i must wait a day or 2 more to try).

1. Pc Inspector file recovery. Freeware software, seemed more geared for recovering files i may have deleted, but seems promising.

2.UBCD4WIN. A bootable freeware system recovery tool, after i give Acronis and pc inspector a shot, ill try this one. Sounds almost exactly like Acronis but free.

If anyone can steer me down an easier path, or let me know im on the right on i would appreciate it very much.



p.s. Something i may have forgotten, the files are infact still on the harddrive as acronis let me browse the drive briefly before making the image.(i was able to see the folders)

thx again