Windows XP sees drive as not formatted.

[c-tech]

hi everyone?
All of a sudden my Windows XP has started seeing one of my drives as not formatted. I have an 80GB HDD that i've partitioned into 4 drives. And then i have another 20Gb Hdd that i've connected as the primary slave. I've installed two operating systems Windows 98SE and Windows XPP. yesterday, the Win XP side started seeing the primary slave as not formatted, but Windows 98 sees it as before and the data can be read. What could be the problem and would repairing windows help? thanks.

[mdk2k4]

What you should do is get a program that could tell you the conditions of the drive, meaning if it's about to fail or stop working, I would think wndows 98 cannot predict when i drive is about to fail, it just dies and thats it. Xp would not read a drive that is failing.
Good program is Hard Disk sentinel, google it, you'll find it.

[c-tech]

hi mdk2k4,
i downloaded the software and it showed that my drive was ok. I ended up formatting the drive accidentally since it was being displayed as 2 similar drives in windows 98 i.e F: and H: with the same drive name. I thought that formatting H: would let Windows XP display the contents of F: but that was stupid cos formatting H: was in essence formatting F:. could you know what caused this behavior? thanks/

[cguan_77]

hi mdk2k4, i downloaded the software and it showed that my drive was ok. I ended up formatting the drive accidentally since it was being displayed as 2 similar drives in windows 98 i.e F: and H: with the same drive name. I thought that formatting H: would let Windows XP display the contents of F: but that was stupid cos formatting H: was in essence formatting F:. could you know what caused this behavior? thanks/

drive letter error.. better go to command prompt and check the contents of the drive before trying to do anything...