Member Avatar for evalin

Hi,

I am wondering if someone can help me with this issue.

I had a desktop with ASUS P5GC-MX/133 motherboard installed with two physical hard drives - 1 IDE and 1 SATA2. A year ago I installed window XP SP2 on the IDE hard drive and used SATA2 as storage (not RAID). When I installed the window XP, I did not press F6 to load 3rd party drivers. And I used Device Manager to format the SATA2 drive and partitioned it into 4 partitions.

Last week, there was something wrong with the OS so I reinstalled window XP. However, after reinstalling the OS, the BIOS and window's device manager can detect the 320 GB SATA2 hard drive (but the drive did not show up in My Computer). However, instead of showing the 4 partitions where I have saved important data, it said that the hard drive is not ready.

Can anyone teach me how to get the partitions out and shown in My Computer?

Help is greatly appreciated!.

Eva

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As suggested, the BIOS SATA mode is the first thing to check. Reboot into the BIOS/UEFI setup and look for labels such as "SATA Mode", "Configure SATA as", "IDE/AHCI/RAID" or "Storage Configuration". Note the current mode and, if possible, restore whatever mode the system used when the partitions were created. Changing that setting can alter how the controller exposes the drive to Windows and make previously visible partitions disappear.

Inspect the disk with Windows Disk Management (right‑click My Computer → Manage → Disk Management) rather than Device Manager. If Disk Management prompts to initialize or format the disk, do NOT do that — initializing will overwrite the partition table and reduce the chance of recovery. Look for the partition state: Healthy with no drive letter, RAW, Unallocated, or Offline. Assign a drive letter only when a partition is shown as a valid filesystem (NTFS/FAT).

If the partition table looks damaged or the volumes show as RAW/unallocated, avoid writing to the disk. Make a sector‑level image (copy to another drive) if the data is important, then try a partition recovery tool such as TestDisk to locate and restore the original partitions (TestDisk). If the controller mode is AHCI and the OS lacks correct drivers, ensure the proper chipset/SATA driver is installed or connect the disk to another machine where it can be scanned safely (USB‑SATA adapter or different SATA port).

Also try simple hardware checks: swap the SATA cable, try a different port, or connect the drive to a different system to see whether the partitions appear. If unsure or if recovery attempts risk further data loss, use a professional data‑recovery service. For background on controller modes see AHCI documentation (AHCI).

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Member Avatar for jbennet

In the bios is it set to SATA or IDE Emulation mode?

Member Avatar for evalin

In the bios is it set to SATA or IDE Emulation mode?

Hi Jbennet:

Thanks for the response. How do I check if it is set to SATA or IDE emulation mode?

Thanks.

Eva

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