xp re-install gone wrong

Help i just did a format of my c deive and re-installed windows xp. For some reason i now have different drive letters on all my hard drives and cd-roms. also i cannot access any info i had on second hard drive probably because of letter change. XP installed on f drive. it changed my d drive to c and also changed cd letters.
Fortunately i backup everything on cd.
Any ideas on what happened and how i can recover from this.

densaw

 

Disconnect all your drives except the one you want to install XP on. Format it and install XP. Then re-attach your other drives. The letters for all your drives, except the system drive, can be changed by right-clicking My Computer, Manage, Disk management and right-clicking the drives there.

Was the drive you lost access to formatted NTFS? If so, then you may need to give yourself permission to access it after the reinstallation.

 

thanks so much for your help. Did excatly what you said and install went fine. Noow if i only knew why i lost info on 2nd hard drive.

Thanks,
densaw

 

Does the second drive show up in My Computer? How is/was it formatted. NTFS or FAT32?

 

the d drive was formatted FAT32.

 

See if it shows in Disk Manager. Did you use any tweakers, like TweakUI or X-Setup that may have hidden the drive?

 

Thanks again for your help.
The drive shows up fine. It is just apparent that for some reason this drive got formatted or something else caused it to lose info. I know that i did not request a format. However i have backed up hardrive on cd, therefore i can retrieve info.

thanks