If I understand your question, there are no limits as to drive assignments in XP. Normally it will assign ''letters'' as to what they are (ie: HDs as C,D,etc... and CDROMs and ZIP drives after that). Many times it will just use the next letter when adding something after the original setup. While there is no problem in it doing this, sometimes with a HD (Internal, External, ZIP, whatever) it indicates that Windows has not identified the add-on correctly and/or at some point you''re going to have a problem. If you were to do a fresh install of XP it would show everything it the correct order...to avoid having to do a new install and get them in the correct order, you can (as I instructed in one of the above posts) just disconnect everything but the HDs, let Windows assign them and then add everything else and XP will assign them correctly as if you did a clean install...

Rule one with getting important data....don''t ''move'' it....''copy'' it. When you KNOW you have it copied safely you can delete if from the original location.

If your OS has ''seen'' this backup drive at one time or another...and assigned a letter or you have....then in theory things ''should'' work.....unless there is a formatting or boot sector/initialising error on the drive...or physical damage to the drive''s platter.

If the data is important....the best advice is NOT to trial-and-error with getting to it but to take your drive to a competent tech and have the data retrieved first.....then play with settings etc.

More often than not....a mis-interpreted suggestion will have you wiping the data rather than saving it...

Paul - I don't have a clue where that tirade came from, but you're absolutely right about 'mis-interpreted suggestion'. In the interest of all, I will refrain from participating further in these threads.

yrag....it''s certainly not anything to do with your assistance in these things...as you are always on the button.....but it has always been my experience that the best advice is only as good as the competence of the recipient, not that of the advisor...

When retrieving important data it is more easily or reliably ''saved'' by copying, rather than moving...as if there is a data loss in ''transit'' you tend to find you lose the source and the destination.

Important data retrieval is safer in the hands of the competent, rather than assuming correct advice will be followed correctly....cos we all know what ''assuming'' makes us....

I would of gotten back to this sooner but it just seems to not want to completely work. Finally got the backup drive to work by doing as you suggested and put each drive on its on IDE cable. It detected the drive and was able to move some of the files off the drive, but windows kept losing it for some reason, would have to go back into disk management and have it redetect the seagate drive. After I got most of what I wanted it off it, I powered down and disconnected the backup drive. When I turned it back on bios found everything it should have but when it got to where you should normally see the windows bootscreen all I get is the message "error loading operating system". This is the drive that was working fine. So, I thought I would try reinstalling xp, that maybe it had just had enough. It does start the install, but when it get to where it reboots the first time, you get the same message. I have to admit, of all the error messages I have ever seen, never got that one before.

At least I was able to get the stuff off the backup drive so that solves that problem. Now I just have to get the main drive to boot back up. I will figure this out sooner or later. If you have any ideas be glad to hear them, but will understand if you have had enough of me. Thanks for all the help you have given.

If your main drive was fine before you moved some of your backup files over and it is now not booting up right, what are the chances that you infected it with a virus that you had previously backed up, without knowing?

I guess anything is possible. That is something I actually wondered about myself. Everything from the backup drive was scanned at some point before it went on there, but that doesn't mean there isn't one there. I have Norton Antivirus cd and I think you can boot with it to check. I will give it a shot. Just don't know if it will scan without running it from within windows. It's worth a shot at this point.

Thanks for the suggestion.

I thought I would let you guys know I got everything back up and running. Would of posted sooner but it has taken this long to get everything working. It ended up that my power supply was bad and it kinda just went downhill from there, but all hard drives are working now.

I wanted to give you guys a big "THANK YOU". If it hadn't been for all the help you gave me I would of lost all my data. You were of great help, especially yrag and essencay, I can't thank you guys enough.

As for the comment from jafo, I understand what he was saying but don't necessarily agree with it. I consider myself a competent person, at least enough to follow directions. I would never blamed anyone but myself if something went wrong and I deleted my files. Everyone here was just trying to provide me some help I ask for and they all did a great job with it.

Glad it's working. Try not to be too hard on Jafo....you know what he's like when he's 'remonstrating' As for me...trust me when I say I would have let you take the blame if it got screwed up

I can remonstrate better then the next man....so there!.....