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> That's what we're doing. It doesn't boot at all when slaved to another
> PC. We used a disk recovery utility to access the system folders, but
> we can't find the data files.
Let's make sure we are not talking at cross-purposes. "Booting" means using
that drive as the location from which the initial information is loaded into
memory in order to start the operating system.
Having the drive configured as a secondary drive on a different PC does
*not* mean that you boot from that drive. The PC continues to boot from the
primary drive that it had before, as long as you have got the configuration
right.
IDE drive settings are fiddly. You may need to change the jumpers on the
other disk as well, so that it recognises that it is a master with slave
present as opposed to being the sole drive on the IDE cable.
There can be varying degrees of problem with the disk when you try to
connect it this way.
1. The PC BIOS doesn't recognise it. This indicates either that you have
messed up the jumper setting or that you have a serious hardware problem
with the drive. If you are sure it is not the former, then no amount of
fiddling about with data recovery software is going to help much. You decide
whether the data is worth the price of sending the drive to a data recovery
expert.
2. The BIOS recognises the drive, and the Windows System dialog recognises
the drive, but no valid drive letters come up in Windows Explorer. This
usually indicates that the hardware is OK, but the master boot record and/or
partition table have been corrupted. There is software that can attempt to
rebuild this, but *be very cautious* when trying to use it - if you get it
wrong you are in danger of messing up the data even further.
Regards
Jonathan West
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