1. About XP utilities: I do not believe any XP pro utility would corrupt data on its own. There can destructive write tests for disks but they usually give you plenty of warning. I do not believe XP contains that type of utility but I'm not an XP specialist. I have seen Win 2K and XP systems make some remarkable repairs over several boot attempts on corrupted file systems but it took several passes to get it right. You might try that with your Seagate drive. It's worth a try.
2. Reasons for two drive failures: Lightning? Bad Luck? Bad controller? I would definitely not continue to use your current controller in case there is something wrong with it. Replace the cables to just be safe, they are cheap.
3) Disk utilities for recovery: Go here. I know people who have had success with their products and services. This is not necessarily an endorsement, I'm just trying to help out.
4. I don't understand why you are mixing DR DOS and XP. The native disk layouts are different. I would not fool around with DR DOS on a drive that I'd been running a native XP file system on. Does the XP disk manager see the drive? Also you mentioned loading a SCSI driver, why? These are ATA drives and SCSI drivers sometimes need to be loaded for SATA drives with some controllers but not ATA drives. Use the ATA drivers that ship with XP.
Regards,
Marc
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