[art]

I have just added a 300gb 2nd hard drive to my pc. I reinstall xp pro when my pc gets all messed up so I don't want to come across this problem as I will be storing data on this slave drive.

Would this work?
unplug pc from mains then open pc up and dissconnect the slave drive.
plug back in and reinstall winxp (pro) once installed and running unplug everything and re connect the slave.
I know this is not a solution, but it may work..

just a thought.... if there is a sure answer to this please let us all know...