"Disk in drive is not formatted" (can't access HD)

[dirty]

So i ran into a problem with my XP home on my maxtor 80gb HD.
I had a new copy of XP pro laying around, so i decided to go ahead and install it on my other harddrive, a 160gb hitachi.
Unfortunately that drive is not partitioned, and i believe i ran into the problem with it being over 137gb.
XP pro booted up and then after shutting it down for a day, it would only say "error loading OS"

so i decided to just run the recovery console on the XP home, and i got that up and running again. Unfortunately, Windows is now saying that my 160gb hitachi drive is not formatted, and asks if i would like to format it.
i have abot 120gb worth of valuable files on this drive and would not like to lose them. Is there anyway to get XP to recognize the drive without reformatting it?
thanks

[Catweazle]

Bung it in a different system, as a 'Slave' drive or as master on the secondary IDE channel, and see if it is recognised there.

Then, on that system, go to Control Panel > Performance & Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management. Let us know what partitioning information you see there please.

By the way, if there are files stored on the drive, it is definitiely partitioned. It may only have ONE partition created, but it has had it created neverthless.

[manutdrule1990]

Wht you could do if you have important stuff on the HD, boot the pc up through MS-Dos you will probably need a boot up disk but they are easy to make! Just search MS-Dos Boot up Disk in google. make sure that the boot up disk has the programme (i'm from England lol) FDISK.EXE as this can format and partitionyour drive.
Once you have loaded FDISK by typing fdisk.exe at the A:\ select the option saying something along the lines of 'Create a new Partition (Logical, extended) I think it is option 1. Then create a new Logical Drive, and you should notice that there is currently one made (thats were all your important files are) and make sure that you boot the pc with the newly created logical drive and insert you Windows XP Pro Installation CD (make sure your Boot up sequence boots the CD first!) and install XP Pro again.
Once you have done that, go into My Computer and you will see two logical drives most likely Drive C and Drive D (depending on if you have any CD Drive or Removable Drives etc. but the drive letter does not matter) Open up Drive C and if it is partitioned (which it sounds like it is!) you will beable to see all your important documents! and too be safe transfer them over to your newly installed lo0gical drive (the one with XP Pro on) and if you dont mind having two logical drives you are done, however you could simply delete the first partition (with all your important stuff already been moved) by loading your pc with the MS-DOS Boot Up disk that you used earlier and using FDISk again but this time choose Option 3 (i Think) the one that reads something like 'Delete Logical, Extended Drives etc.' and delete the first Logical Drive that does not have an OS on it! and now your done. Reboot your PC through the last remaining logical drive and uve gt XP Pro back!

Hope this helps
Dave.