Yesterday I flattened a users PC (running NT4.0) and installed Win2K Pro + SP2 The computer had a second IDE Hard DRive in it, which had a single 10GB Partition, and had all his data stored on it. In order to maintain data integrity and to ensure that I didnt accidentally delete this partition at setup, I removed this second hard drive prior to doing the format and install. The data was verified OK before this procedure. When I had installed OS, and all drivers and updates, I then powered off and popped the 2nd HDD back in the machine. It came up ok, but then when it was logged on as local machine admin account, it said it had made changes and required a reboot. When it came back up again, the second disk had 2 partitions (2GB and 8GB respectively) and these were unreadable (and the computer said unformatted) we tried the HDD in another machine with NT on, but to no avail. Does anyone know of any reason why this should have happened? Im mainly a hardware person, and have never experienced this prob before. THe 2nd hard drive is practically brand new, and had no OS of its own installed on it. It was an NTFS single physical partition, and i took all usual precautions when removing it. If anyone can shed light on this, or can recommend a way to get this data back, I would be most appreciative.

hello are your jumprs set corectly not beeing demeaning you sound like you know your way around.this other drive on the right place on ide cable? i take it the win2k is on ntfs formated hard drive?the nt4 would not have a choice i know xp you can put it on both but that should not stop it from readin ntfs on the 10 gig drive.mmmmmmm.its being detected but not read it would have a mbr even being a slave and no system installd you might want to try fdisk /mbr on the 10 gig drive and let win 2k put what ever on it on reboot.i would make a ghost copy of the 10 gig drive befor doing this.ive not used nt4 so i,ll asume it uses ntfs like win2k does an m.e or 98 machine read the 10 gig? they can only read fat. sorry not got any thing you most likely did not allready try.