IDE hard drive not recognized

Haha I wouldn't say that I'm "happy" as I still haven't converted it to Basic (haven't had time yet). It was "offline", as Whest said, but would only allow me to convert it to Dynamic drive. I assume it was already in Basic but was not showing or allowed me to do anything. Now that I converted it into Dynamic, I am able to see the HDD as it was: a file dump. I'm able to access things and do things with it. Looks good so far but yes, I'll try to convert it to Basic once I get time. And I'm not sure what this SATA/PATA is about (unless PATA = IDE?)

Yes Pata = IDE

mayt be foramt it and then use wild guess helped me
using other computer save ur data and format

I found it in help what happened but it only explains it in brief - it automatically converts it to a dynamic drive - so your ok to go - I think its do with the original setup with the hard drive - so you can rest easy :) .

whest said:

I found it in help what happened but it only explains it in brief - it automatically converts it to a dynamic drive - so your ok to go - I think its do with the original setup with the hard drive - so you can rest easy :) .

You mean, what I did was "automatic"? Actually, I still don't get it, haha. So it's okay to not switch it to Basic?

I think so, but if you want to find out you could try to, as long as the options not greyed out you can for sure.
I just found out the solution i think as to why this happened - your disk was a dynamic disk originally :

A dynamic disk may become Missing when it is corrupted, powered down, or disconnected.
A dynamic disk may become Offline if it is corrupted or intermittently unavailable. A dynamic disk may also become Offline if you attempt to import a foreign (dynamic) disk and the import fails. An error icon appears on the Offline disk. Only dynamic disks display the Missing or Offline status.
Only dynamic disks can be reactivated.
Backup Operator or Administrator is the minimum membership required to perform these steps.
Reactivating a missing or offline dynamic disk
Using the Windows interface :
To reactivate a dynamic disk by using the Windows interface
In Disk Management, right-click the disk marked Missing or Offline.
Click Reactivate Disk. The disk should be marked Online after the disk is reactivated
:):):):)

Interesting. That does make sense (in how I "reactivated it") but curious as to why my drive was originally a dynamic (if it's sole purpose is a file dump). Thanks!