I notice that you have not yet received a response to your post, so I'll 
give it a try. First - you are right that a reformat of your D drive 
should be a last resort.

I would try the following:
Check the BIOS to make sure it is recognizing the D drive. Could be a 
mechanical or cable problem.
Use the Command Prompt (start/programs/accessories/system tools) to try 
to access the D drive. It should start as a prompt to a location on the 
C drive. Just type "D:" (no quote marks) and you will either be at the 
prompt for the D drive or get an error message. If it does give a D 
prompt, type "dir" (no quotes) and it should list the folders on the D 
drive or you will get an error message. If everything seems OK, it may 
have been an erroneous message that you received.
If not OK, use the recovery console to try to repair the MBR of the D 
drive. I've never done this, so I'm sorry that I can not give you any 
directions or assurances.

I hope this helps. Others might have more/better input.

Tom


sue wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> WIn XP Sp2
> 2 Maxtor hard drives
> 2.5 gig Ram
> DVD player
> DVD/cd/Recorder
> Zone Alarm Internet Security Suite
> CounterSpy
>
> Last night when I powered down this computer, all was
> fine.   Today, Windows booted normally and I went to my second hard
> drive D: and was told the disk was not formatted.   Wants me to
> format it to use it.   I didn't have any info on D: that I can't
> replace so I don't need to do a recovery.
>
> Other than formatting is there some kind of fix I could try before I
> do format?   I would be so much easier to be able to "fix" it than to
> put all the info back.  I've googled and am not really sure of what
> I'm looking for.   Does the recovery console fix mbr have anything to
> do with a solution?
>
> I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone can give me.
>
> Sue Na
> [log in to unmask]
>
>     

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