This seems to be a rather common problem in WinXP, but without some definitive solution. My second HD, set to secondary master, simply one day stopped working. It's detected in the BIOS and Windows and everything, but when trying to access, WinXP brings up the dialog box "Disk is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?", to which I answer no, since I have plenty of data in it that was perfectly accessible the last time I shut off the computer. It even recognizes the file system as RAW, even though certain programs recognize files in there in regular FAT32, even though they can't be accessed. Keeping in mind I can't download big programs at the moment, how could I get back at the contents in it? Formatting it wouldn't be a problem after I rescued the files in it. I suppose some file recovery program like R-studio would do the trick, but obviously, I would prefer not to shell out 80 bucks if possible... Many thanks in advance.

Do diskmgmt.msc and please describe the partition status as best as you can, I will try my bit to help you. V. Satya Ramachandran For more help : satya_ramachandran@adp.com Include problem link in mail

You could try pcinspector.

Many thanks for the tips, I'll be trying those programs. Y'know, this is the second time I get trouble with this HD. The first time, I was storing all the data in it I could before saving it all on CD-Rs, and right when it was full, nearly all the parts of my PC were lost in some weird electrical incident. Luckily, only the logical card on the HD got toasted. I suppose the HD has suicidal tendencies...

Yea, some do!! lol