The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable

[DarkNessBear]

Long story short:

(I have a SATA HDD, IDE HDD & IDE DVD drive)
Was switching my DVD drive with my old DVD driver, forgot to set it to master; started computer kept freezing, so I kept restarting. -eventually checked to make sure my dvd drive was working, noticed it was set as slave... so I had two slaves and one sata.

Quickly changed the DVD drive to master, checked bios to make sure it was recgnoized: everything was recgnoized.

Started windows, checked my IDE HD now says:

"The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

When I try error fix it says; "The disk check could not be performed because Windows cannot access the disk."

Please help, I have a ton of REALLY important items on that HDD and was stupid and didn't back up. I really need your guys help...

Thank you very much.

 

[mechBgon]

There's links to file-recovery software in this thread, some of which is freeware:

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2037625&enterthread=y

Good luck!

 

[DarkNessBear]

Thanks, but even programs like Restoration cannot access my HDD. =/

 

[mpilchfamily]

Perform a repair install of windows. It should fix any problems there are on the drive. At least to the point that you will be able to run Skndsk to find nd fix the errors.

For a repair install just boot from your windows disk. When prompted tell it to install windows. Don't choose the R option yet. The system will do a check of the drive. If it detects windows is still on the drive it will ask if you want to repair it or install fresh. Now is when you select repair install and it should take care of everything. If it doesn't find the installation of windows you may have to find a way to back up what files you can and do a complete reinstall of windows.

 

[TheKub]

So windows is on your sata drive and the IDE drive is just data?

I would unplug the dvd drive set the harddrive to master and only have it plugged in and see if you can access the drive. It is VERY (REALLY VERY) unlikely that your data was corrupted due to a jumper\cabling mixup.