Lost partition! can i recover it?

scouse · #16 03-30-2004, 04:55 PM

The only thing i can think of is what was mentioned earlier and put your drive back to a factory condition and do a clean install of your OS.
It seems your drive is corrupted and it may only take a good format to sort it out..You have everything saved what you need i think you have said? so if that is the case then go fo a good wipe of your drive..

Your G drive partition is corrupted by the looks of it..

justinjustin · #17 03-31-2004, 05:16 PM

Yes my G: is corrupted, but my files were saved on my C:, so untill I can boot my computer and burn my files, im stuck. I was going to format G: and put my files back on it. Do you think if I put it into another computer as a second drive and booted I would be able to format G:?

scouse · #18 03-31-2004, 06:01 PM

Seems like all your files are now on C use another computer to transfer the files you need from C then format your hard drive.

You will atleast ahve your files what you needed and your drive fixed again..

justinjustin · #19 03-31-2004, 06:37 PM

OK, so I found the diskpart command while I was looking around on the xp recovery console on the CD. I used diskpart to successfully erase and reformat my G: drive. I ran chkdsk on my C: drive and It returned no errors. The only thing is the previous G: drive is now D:, which is one of my cd drives. I rebooted and got the same error though! Since there are not actually any problems with my drive, is there something wrong with my MBR or something like it? I know there is a fixmbr command at the prompt, but Im afraid it will screw up my computer. what do you think?

justinjustin · #20 03-31-2004, 07:08 PM

I backed up my mbr and ran fixmbr but it didnt do anything. See, when I turn it on, it searches for bootable disks then immediately shows "Read disk error / Ctrl-alt-del to reboot" It doesnt even seem like its really checking anything...

scouse · #21 03-31-2004, 07:20 PM

Sorry but i cannot think of any further help for you. I am sure there is a fix for this i just do not know what.

If it was me i would just hook it up as a slave look for the files save them and then just wipe the drive clean.

You could try a repair using the XP disc.

Boot with xp disc in drive, go through the usual steps you get till you get to the screen asking do you want to install xp or repair, choose install then at the next screen it offers you repapir again now choose repair. Have your serial number handy as you will need to imput it. when you have done that it will repair the operating system without loosing anything you have on C drive.

Follow these steps if all goes well then you can finally get to save those files to disc.

justinjustin · #22 03-31-2004, 08:29 PM

Thanks for your help. Ive already tried the repair, with no success. I still got the error right when I rebooted from the repair install. Since Ive seen that there are no errors on the disk, could it be a virus or something?

Play_The_0dds · #23 03-31-2004, 09:01 PM

very possible it could be a virus, or it could be a bad driver update or program install. i have seen anti virus programs cause this kind of thing. i dont know how to tell you to try and save the info on your drive at this point, it has been all covered by everyone's post. if it were mine, i would slave the drive to another machine, save what i could(if anything) and zero the drive, repatition, format and install. i have tried repair installs after situations like this and always end up doing the full erase anyway. save what you can and plan for a complete drive erase is my best advice, start clean that way you can depend on the system (for a while atleast). if you dont have a program i am sure someone can offer a link and instructions how to use the program. i have one, but not with me at the moment.

justinjustin · #24 03-31-2004, 10:44 PM

Alright. I only wish I didnt have a 200gb drive, it sure makes it a hellof a lot harder to recover things. I guess I scrape files from it onto a friends computer, and then do a zero format and new install like you all suggested. Thanks for all your help! I really appreciate it, and Ill post here if I suddenly fix it or something. Thanks!

scouse · #25 04-01-2004, 07:01 AM

Justin it would be good if you fix it and come back and inform us all how you went about doing it.

I hope you get it sorted it out..

justinjustin · #26 04-12-2004, 08:49 PM

Well, still no solution, but I found some people with the same problem as me.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/19004/
I posted a couple times on that forum, so if your interested you can see whats going on with them also. I can at least view and modify my files now, but I still cant boot off of my drive, or run my original Windows XP, which is creating some problems for me. Id appreciate any more suggestion or comments, thanks!

Eelco · #27 04-27-2004, 06:39 PM

I too have a 'lost' partition, at least it won't recognise under WINXP, however, it is still there when I use the old windows98 start up disk and on using the g:\dir command it reads the partition and files perfectly.

Luckily I have an ancient copy of Dosshell.exe, (it pays to be older) and I will begin transferring the files to a different partition, then back them up.
Why this is happening I don't know and but suspect a WINXP fault.