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General discussion

300 GB Maxtor One Touch appears Unallocated, HELP NEEDED!

Aug 10, 2006 3:05PM PDT

Hi, I wanted to know if there is a way to regain the information in a Hard Drive that suddenly appeared as Unallocated in Disk Manager?

Is because my Maxtor One Touch 2 suddently appeared like that, and I havent found any solutions yet for this, I read in a random forum while searching on Yahoo about my problem that "Partition Magic" program was able to create a partition in a HD and keep any file that were in it, but there is only one program I could find with that name and it was Norton Partition Magic 8.

So here are my questions:
1. Does someone know if Norton PM8 does create a partition on a unallocated HD and keeps any file or information in it with no risk of formating?
2. Is there such program that could archive it?
3. Any suggestions that could help me get 200 GB back of hard work ( I draw and do media work )?

Anyways, I checked in 2 computers so far:
My computer it has:
Window XP Professional ( first edition, no SP updates )
and in my sister new computer:
Windows XP Media Center

In both it didnt appear in My Computer and then when I checked on Device Manager it did appear in the USB port as One Touch II Maxtor, but then I checked on Disk Manager and the drive had all 300GB as unallocated space.

So could someone plz help me out? I try to give all the info I could, so if there is something more you need to know ask me I will try to tell.

Thnx for your time.

Discussion is locked

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About no SP updates. DOA. Here's why.
Aug 11, 2006 12:51AM PDT

Without the SP1 update, XP does not function proper with drives over 127GB. And I found USB issues that were cured in SP2.

If the drive was good, I'll write that the lack of updates or a not so great OS install could be the cause of this one.

Hope this helps.

Bob

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I doubt tha is the problem.
Aug 11, 2006 2:23AM PDT

I also checked it on a new computer with Windows XP Media Center, and the Hard Drive had appeared the same way as in my computer, so I doubt the update with SP1 or 2 is the problem.

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Your post noted no SP1 or SP2. Here's the document about...
Aug 11, 2006 3:52AM PDT

Why it doesn work with over 127GB drives.

http://www.48bitlba.com

Sorry to see you miss this one.

If you are writing you tried it in a fully updated PC then my answer will change, but I can't tell if the host PC is proper yet. Too little details on your posts.

Bob

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Light reading.
Aug 11, 2006 4:30AM PDT
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Done The Light Reading.
Aug 11, 2006 9:43AM PDT

Yeah, my cousin show me that link before I decided to post in here, and I have already tried the Chkdsk solution, and it doesnt work.

And well the HD never had problems with my XP, because I had it for almost 2 years, and this just happen a less than a week ago. I will try installing SP1 and/or SP2 to see if that is the problem, but if that was the problem then I wonder why it didnt work on a WinXP Media Center edition and in a WinXP with SP2 (I checked yesterday at a cousin house).

Anyways, if SP1 or SP2 dont work, do you know if Partition Magic can create a partition on a Unallocated space and keep any files it had?

Thnx for the help Bob, I will try reply later when after I install SP1, and see if it worked.

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About MCE and why it may not work.
Aug 11, 2006 10:07AM PDT

Again, the lack of detail hampers me. Some install MCE on machines like AMD based computers but rely on Microsoft for motherboard drivers. I find these to sometimes have issues. Without the gritty details I can't say it should work. It might but I know so little about that machine.

Bob