C Drive shows up as -: now, no clue what is going on

[FatTireDrinker]

I went to start windows and it just froze on the Windows logo page and eventually went to

the boot choice screen. I tried to boot last known good config, safe mode, and all the rest

same thing. I tried to repair windows, won't allow because it says it can not recognize system

volume. I tried to make a partiton, actually tried to delete the partition windows

is on wouldn't allow. On the partition screen it shows "-: unrecognized partition", I tried

fixboot, fixmbr, dskscan, and format, but it won't recognize the volume, so I can't do

anything. This is the strangest thing I have ever come across and I can't find any info on the

web after a hour of searching. Any Ideas or help would be greatly appreciated

 

[Bozo Galora]

you gave no info here on what you are running - so we dont know if, for example, if you have an old system with bad mobo caps
You may also have had a voltage spike or dip from the wall socket.

the first step, as always, is to d/l and run the HDD manufacturers drive test utility from the floppy drive.
This will tell you if the HDD controller fried.
then you try another HDD (IDE? SATA? SCSI?) to see if the mobo controller has gone south
Then you can try XP repair install, you will lose no data.
And a multimeter into the 12V molex to see if you have 12V.

As a last resort you can try an emergency recovery disc, like ERD or AVAST Bart PE or Hiren's, or a recovery sw like get data back - just to see if your data is still there

Edit: Could also be a Virus - you could run a low level format - write zeros to O/S partition, but only after all above is exhausted.

really sounds like the mobo or HDD went bad