help with hdd w/ bad partition table

[BullsOnParade]

I used 2 utilities to try and reconstruct the partiton table on a refurb wd 20gb drive that 's been slowly dying on me. Right now it reports as being 10gb with 7gb free which is odd. When i try to open partition magic it exits saying invalid partion table or something like that. I used the winxp fixmbr fixboot and then some dos util to rebuild the partition table.

Is the drive hosed, can the data still be recovered ? Should I just give up and format it and see if it works at all ?

 

[kkeennyy]

does your bios support >8 gig drives?

If yes take a look at

http://www.microsoft.com/windo...n/bootcons_fixboot.asp

If XP grab the disc & boot to the Recovery Console
FIXBOOT C:
(To rewrite the boot sector of the drive)


alternate informative links

NTFS.com Fixing and repair MBR.Fix MBR.Recover boot record.Recovery.
http://www.ntfs.com/mbr-damaged.htm

Data Recovery Software - File System Utilities
http://www.runtime.org/

Trial Software
http://www.ontrack.co.uk/freesoftware/

PC INSPECTOR File Recovery
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Winternals Software - FileRestore - Recover and restore files that have been lost or deleted from your computer
http://www.winternals.com/prod...covery/filerestore.asp

Freeware from Executive Software
http://www.execsoft.com/freeware/freeware.asp