Can't Read Hard Drive!

[jmatrix]

Built new system over the weekend. Everything went fine with install of new C: drive and Win 98. Problem came when I then went to add second hard drive. This wd 1.6 gig came from my old system. It was Fat32 and was located on the primary ide set as slave. Installed in the new system and set it up in BIOS. System boots properly, drive C: is recognized as Primary Master, and D: is recognized properly as Primary slave. New Drive D: shows up in both Control Panel and Device Manager.But here's the problem...system can't read the drive...error message appears that drive needs to be formatted. When I go to "Properties" of this drive it shows FAT not FAT32, and no size. When I try diagnostics, a message appears that there might be a disc utility running (there is none!). I would hate to lose all my data on this drive (of course, I did NOT back it up!) Any suggestions would be greatly appreciates.
Thanks in advance,
Paul (jmatrix)

[GVolosky]

I may be wrong here but I remember something a few years ago that may be of use here...
The Primary master controller takes over some functions of the Slave and if both controllers are not compatible (ie same manuf.)they may not operate together...
Try placing the Slave as Master on the Secondary IDE and see if it reads..
Are you running an overlay on the Slave - this may be the Disk Utility the diag. sees???
G.

[jmatrix]

Thanks for the advice...I'll give it a try tonight. By the way, what is an "overlay" as I am unfamiliar with the term.
Paul

[GVolosky]

An overlay is a translation geometry that is superimposed on the bios to allow a non supportive bios to translate the higher CHS...
G.

[jmatrix]

sorry I asked...Was that in Klingon or Romulan?