Recently removed Ubuntu, 2nd HD Disappears (Asus G74sx)

[ConnerGDavis]

Hey everyone!

I recently went through the painful process of removing the Ubuntu partition from my primary hard drive, then having GRUB problems, then booting BACK into Ubuntu on a USB stick and resetting the MBR to boot Windows. All is well: that partition is gone and GRUB no longer exists, and I can boot into Windows just fine. However, now that I've done that, I notice that my second hard drive, which I normally use for storage of data, has disappeared.

When I say 'disappeared', I mean that I can't find it in Windows Explorer, and nor can I find it in the Disk Management program I used to remove the Ubuntu and GRUB partitions. It used to be that I had three disks: Disk 0 (my primary hard drive with Windows 7 and formally Ubuntu on it, as well as my recovery partition Asus puts in), Disk 1 (the storage drive that's now gone), and the CD-ROM drive that I don't have anything on. Now, I only see the Disk 0 and CD-ROM drive.

I didn't have any data on it that I don't have elsewhere, so recovering the data itself is not a problem. The problem lies in the fact that this drive was nearly 700GB, versus my primary HD which is 400GB and almost completely full, and I want the access to that extra space.

The process I went through to uninstall Ubuntu and GRUB:
1. Remove the partition for Ubuntu on Disk 0, make it unallocated space
2. Boot back into Ubuntu from USB without installing it again onto my hard drive (the "Try Ubuntu" mode)
3. Open up the Terminal, and type: sudo lilo -M /dev/sda mbr (after installing the lilo package)
4. Restart computer
5. Boot to sda1, which is my Recovery partition. Instead of actually loading that partition, it also gave me an option to go to the actual Windows 7 loader, which is what I'm on now
6. Successfully started Windows 7 loader doing that

What I'd like to do is the following:
- Confirm that I've done everything I can to remove GRUB and Ubuntu
- Restore the presence of my 2nd hard drive so I can access and use it
- Be sure that I've properly restored the Windows boot loader... is there anything else I should do from Windows (I'm honestly scared to restart my computer..) to make sure that the next time I restart it won't go to the Recovery partition, but rather to Windows 7 Loader directly?

Thank you to ANYONE who helps me out on this. This computer is extremely important to me, and I really need to make sure this gets fixed. I'm not experienced enough with any of this to do it properly and I feel like I've gotten myself into a deep hole that I cannot get out of. Anyone who can provide me a rope to get out and save myself from potentially screwing myself over on this computer, I GREATLY APPRECIATE YOU!

Thanks in advance for reading this!!

 

[ConnerGDavis]

Okay, so I just recently restarted my computer, and a majority of the problems have fixed. My computer now immediately loads the Windows 7 loader rather than the recovery loader, so now I don't have to worry about anything like that. It also ran CHKDSK as soon as I started it, and there were tons of logs about "Recovering orphaned file ___ in file directory ____". However, after I got onto Win 7, it still hadn't shown up again.

BUT, I think I may have found a reason why it didn't quite work. I found out that the third disc I was talking about (the CD drive) had actually been moved from letter E: to D:, and D: was formerly the drive letter corresponding to my storage drive. I changed that letter back to E:, and now I'm going to run CHKDSK from the command prompt without restarting and see if it recognises that change and properly restores my 2nd hard drive.

 

[ConnerGDavis]

Another bump! I just did CHKDSK and it told me to add the /F flag. I did this, and it said it would schedule CHKDSK to start upon the next restart. I'll restart and update this post, and if it restores my HD, I'll edit this post and ask for the thread to be closed Seems like this chain of problems has been pretty self-fixing, more than I had expected..

Edit: Still not displaying the second hard drive. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks

 

[ConnerGDavis]

Bump, this problem is very concerning, that's 700GB of data that I can't use anymore :|

 

[writhziden]

Does the hard disk still show up in the BIOS?

Also, in command prompt, type

Diskpart
list disk
list volume
​

Post back a screenshot of the results. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-screenshots-files-upload-post-seven-forums.html

 

[ConnerGDavis]

No, only the primary hard drive is showing up.

Should I restart and look at the BIOS to see if it's there like you suggested? Or is there something else I may have to do in order to find it?

~thanks

 

[whs]

If cmd does not show it, that is pretty bad for your data. One chance is if that disk is not in NTFS or Fat32 format but in a Linux format. I would try some independent views with:

1. The bootable CD of Partition Wizard (last entry on the webpage). Load from the CD and see whether you can find it. If it shows up, check in the Used, Unused, Status and Type columns what it says.

2. Check with a live Linuc CD whether you can find it. If you have none, use Puppy. It is small, fast to download and burn and the disks/partitions show on the desktop bottom left after it loaded. That would correctly id a Linux formatted disk. Further instructions are here: http://help.artaro.eu/index.php/win...-files-from-hard-disk-vista.html#.T0wucfEgd_A

 

[ConnerGDavis]

Thank you for those options, I'll try them tomorrow when I have the ability. I'm really concerned about this :s Aside from all those options, if they don't work, I think that my warranty may cover the problem... I really hope so. Might there by any sort of other available option(s) that I can try if none of yours work? Perhaps I need to take it to someone who knows more about this stuff than myself and can fix the problem .

 

[writhziden]

Another option would be to put the drive in an external enclosure and see if you can access it via USB as an external drive. Do what whs suggests first. Then we can discuss the external drive option.

 

[ConnerGDavis]

I'm going to try loading from my Ubuntu CD and see if that can locate it.

 

[ConnerGDavis]

Ubuntu couldn't find it. I guess I'll try the Partition Wizard deal, but I don't know if that will work..

 

[ConnerGDavis]

My problem was fixed. I checked in the BIOS and it appeared that the option to lock my 2nd HDD was enabled, which made it completely invisible and prevented it from being used. Unlocked to its original state, it is working perfectly fine now

 

[writhziden]

Thank you for posting back the solution. That may help future users with similar problems.