My slave drive is "working properly" according to add/remove hardware, but i have no access to it. In computer managment the it has no assigned letter and the only options i have is to delete partion. I am a simple man so please use simple words and direction anyone can follow.

In Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Computer Management select the Disk Management entry from the menu in the left margin. Is the disk listed? You should be able to take ownership and access your files from there. Post back and let us know if this helps. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

the disk is listed as disk 1, but there is no letter designation. it is "healthy (active)". how do you take ownership?

In the viewing panel in the lower right section where the drive ststus shows as healthy, rightclick and you should get a menu that will allow you to change driveletter/path. That might be what you need to do is allocate it a drive letter. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

Is it correctly cabled and jumpered? Is this a new addition to your system or it used to work and now doesn't? You can avoid many of these Windows problems with Linux. Linspire eases the transition for new users

it wont let me change drive letter. the only thing it will let me do is delete partition. the hard drive in the slave drive is a drive that i am having problems with. norton go back keeps restarting and it wont let me turn it off but , it lets me "go back". that is why i have it as my slave i am trying to salave file before i reformat.