I recently Used partition magic to do some memory management and i think i accidentally removed the extended memory and added it to the memory of the HD as a whole. Now, the drive is unnaccessable. Bios detects it correctly, the name, model, and size are all detected correctly by bios, but it does not allow windows to load, whether it be hooked up as a master or a slave. I've tried it on two systems, and in both (as slave and master) would not allow windows to load. It seems as if when it tries to access the drive, it starts some infinite loop, and makes no progress. As of now, data recovery is secondary to getting my HD to work again. Whenever i try to boot from my windows xp CD it simply gets to the Loading windows... and hangs. Also, when i try to boot from a windows 98 floppy, it detects the boot okay...and just hangs. any help would be appreciated. thank you.

Partiton Magic can do a lot of damage to a hard disk if you do not use it properly, which I think is the case here. You terminology seems a bid odd. Memory management and extended memory have nothing to do with hard disks. They are terms relevant to RAM. The only similarity is that they both use bytes, MBs and Gbs to measure their size. So what exectly is it you did? I would guess that you may need to completely partion you hard disk and start again from scratch or get sombody who understands the contruction of a hard disk and see if they can recover anything. Either way it would seem that you have totaly corrupted the Master Boot Record. It can be fixed but needs some knowledge to do it. Do it wrong and you could make matters worse. Stuart

could try this freeware file recovery program, from:http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm if everything else fails, get the hard drive setup utility from the hard drive manufacturers support download site.

Did make your Partition Magic rescue disks? If so, you can boot with the floppies and look at how the disk is setup. You are interested in the active and hidden partitions. Creating new partitions some times changes or hides the original boot partition. You can create the floppies on another machine. Or you can put the drive as a slave or an the second channel of another computer and run Partition Magic there.

If I hook up my unnacessable HD as a slave, the master drive won't boot Windows. It'll get to the loading screen and hang.

is there any way to i guess in a way "hide" the unnacessable HD from bios untill i actually load windows?

Do it with the Rescue Disks