HELP: Missing Partition after reinstall

[MrZebra]

Yesterday, after rebooting my WinXP Pro was not loading anything and won't work correctly.

So I tried reinstalling it (Repair Install) and it stopped in the middle... Twice. So I tried installing it in a separate directory and it worked but now it says my 3rd partition (E: ~70GB - which contains ALL my data) is Not formatted?!?!? I was able to access it with no problems just a few hours before until I rebooted.

My C: (4 GB - Windows itself only) and my D: (Temp/Swap Partition) are fine, but everything that else is on the E:. All partitions are NTFS.

Is there a tool (Free or crackable hehe) that I can get to make the partition visible again, it can't actually be gone right?

The only thing I think could have caused the problem was when I deleted the content of the Norton Protected Recycled Bin (Before doing a defrag) assuming these were unneeded deleted files. But it worked for at least a day after I deleted those - until I rebooted that is.

Another problem after the reinstall is that I can't access the Internet but at least I also have a Linux Box that works so I'll be able to read replies to this and download any programs needed with it.

[MrZebra]

chkdsk e: /f

I can't believe that's all I had to do!

I spent hours searching these forums, google, downloaded a couple of programs that won't work and did a few searches on the Micro$oft KB and then in one of the articles (Not really related to my problem) there was a mention of chkdsk, now seeing that it thinks that the drive is not formatted, I didn't think of it but I tried it and it worked. I did lose a few files but nothing critical...

So now I'll reinstall Windows and all my progs... Thanks for those who tried to help me...

[MrZebra]

Ok, I just reinstalled Windows XP again now that my E: Drive is fine. The reason why I wanted to redo an install was to format the C: drive (Windows only Partion 4GB) to wipe out all the junk that the previous installs had. I was kinda surprised it took a long time to format it so I let it run and went out. When I came back, I finished the setup and upon reboot my BIOS warns me that my HDD is about to fail (S.M.A.R.T. Status Bad - Replace and Backup) This is a brand new drive (3 Months old) that I replaced because my old one gave the same error. Why would it fail so quickly?!?!?

I guess it's still under warranty so I suppose it won't be too expensive to replace but it still annoys me...