Hard Disk Detect in BIOS but not in Windows

[ijAcK]

Hi guys

I am facing a serious problem with my HDD and need you help.

I used to run Windows XP on my 400 GB HDD Seagate as the Primary IDE drive and 40 GB HDD as Secondary, but unfortunately my Computer suddenly turn off and from that point I was not able to boot Windows XP whenever I turn on my PC Windows Screen would appear and restart again. So I've installed Windows XP on my 40 GB HDD and run as a Primary IDE drive and 400 GB as a Secondary. Here is the problem, the BIOS detected 400 GB as a Seconday
but Windows could not detected this 400 GB Hard Disk even under Disk Management, so I went to the Device Manager and Right-clicked on the Secondary IDE channel and selected Uninstall. After that I've scan for hardware changes, now in the right corner of the notification area a tool tip pop-up would appear and say found new Secoundary IDE Channel. So, I am happy to go to My Computer... there it is my 400 GB HDD is detected with a drive letter as G:/ drive... this is another problem I actually have three partition on this 400 GB HDD so where are the two partition have gone Why is it showing only G:/ drive but not only this G:/ drive would disappear again from my computer. I have stored very important files and photos as well. How can I recover my files.

Oh! I've also tried Linux OS (Ubuntu) but it won't detect either.

Please help me...

Thanks

[ppumkin]

was just reading another thread with the same problem a few minutes ago with a drive like yours and sudden power down.
unfortunately there is no quick fix this- what you can do is downlaod easues paritiotn tool
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm
load it and check what that reports about your 400gb - if it shoes paritions like you said- then you are luckily nad can use soem recovery software to rebuild your data. if no partitions shwo.. STOP and send to professional if you want your data back. any attemp to recover files without parition nfo will possibly cause more damage to the files.

[poehere]

First off clone this drive. Do not continue to work on the failing drive or drives that have problems. From there you can purchase a partition software to check your partition table or use a hex editor. Fix your problem on the cloned drive. Do all your test and work on the drive you have cloned.

[fzabkar]

You can use TestDisk or Partition Find and Mount (both freeware) on your clone.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
http://findandmount.com/

But first I would examine the partition table and boot sector with Microsoft's Sector Inspector:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt. If you upload it, one of us will be able to help you with the next step.

[ppumkin]

You can use TestDisk or Partition Find and Mount (both freeware) on your clone.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
http://findandmount.com/

But first I would examine the partition table and boot sector with Microsoft's Sector Inspector:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt. If you upload it, one of us will be able to help you with the next step.

Great Tools! and free