Hard drives

[Xavier1]

My problem is, I have two drives installed in my computer. One is a Seagate Barracuda, and the other is a Maxtor. I used the Seagate as the primary and the Maxtor as the slave. I had to reformat my Seagate and reload windows, but now when I go to My Computer, I can't see my Maxtor. It shows up in BIOS, but I can't access it once windows boots. Right now, I'm using Windows98SE. For some reason, I can't upgrade to XP.(I'll explain that one at another time.) Before I reformatted, I saved some vital info to the other drive. I really need to get that info. Is there anyway to get this info back? I have my disks that came with the Maxtor, but the problem is, they only want to set it up and that would mean overwriting all the info on the disk. Is there any way around this? Step by step instructions would be really nice. Seriously, any help will be appreciated. BTW, I have an Asus K7V-RM motherboard. I'm running 98SE. I've already changed the Maxtor to the secondary master, but like before, it shows in BIOS, but I can't find it under My Computer. Thanks in advance.
EXCELSIOR!!!

[newme]

have you checked device manager,Go to the Device Manager. Look for the IDE Controllers, and open the one (primary or secondary) that you have your drive on. Go to advanced settings. Make sure the device type is set to auto detection. Also, check "current transfer mode" and see what it says.mind you this is for xp,maybe the same for se ,not sure though

[Xavier1]

How do I get to Device Manager?

[avx]

What OS are you running? If its WinXP home, you right clikc on my computer, select properties, then the "Hardware" tab, and then choose the "Device Manager" button.

Probably very similar on all ver sions of windows, but it could be a bit different

[mike breck]

Is the Maxtor HD is newer and added after the Seagate HD?

Did you use the floppy disk that came with the Maxtor HD (MaxBlast) to setup the Maxtor HD when it was Slaved to the Seagate?

If so, you may have installed the Maxtor Drive Overlay (EZ-BIOS)to the Seagate and Maxtor HDs. This software allows older motherboard BIOSes (like yours) to "see" and use the full capacity of newer, larger HDs.

If that is the case, then you should use the MaxBlast floppy to reinstall EZ-BIOS to your Seagate HD.

HTH

[Xavier1]

AVX, went to device manager and found the hard drive. Didn't see advanced settings, although it did say it was working properly.

Mike, I did install the Maxtor later and I did use the EZ-BIOS setup disk because the Maxtor is larger than 32 gigs. But, if I go back and redo it for the Seagate(which is only 20 gigs), how does that help me to see the Maxtor? I don't want to lose the stuff that I've put back on the Seagate after reformatting it. Like I said, I can see them both in BIOS, but the Maxtor doesn't show up under My Computer.

[glc]

When you use EZ-Bios to install a slave drive that's bigger than the system bios can handle, it installs the overlay on the MASTER drive. If you wiped the Seagate, the overlay went bye-bye too. The safest way to get your data back is install the Maxtor as a slave into another computer that has a compliant bios.

This is just one reason why I hate bios overlays - it's too easy to screw things up.

[mike breck]

It'll be interesting if Slaving the HD in another PC works.

I seem to remember another similar case, where it "appeared" that EZ-BIOS had installed itself on the first sector Slave drive as well.

[Xavier1]

Too late. I already took it to get fixed. You guys were right though. It was the overlay that was the problem. I found out that I should've removed my second drive before reformatting and reinstalling on the Seagate. Of course, I lost ALL of the info on the Maxtor. The one thing I was trying so hard not to do. Thanks for your help. I appreciate it. Now, if I could only get some help on building my next computer...

Excelsior!!!