XP Partition disappeared!

[ajf3]

Hey all -

Just found out I have a big problem... I have a 160GB disk - all one
partition - that has disappeared. I'm running XP & haven't noticed
anything strange (eg, reboots, bsods, etc) - just tried to go to D:
and it said the disk wasn't formatted. It had existed there for
several months without change...

When I go into disk management, it reports it as a 'Healty' parition
without a file system.

I installed Partition Magic 8 and it is at least able to see the NTFS
parition on that disk, but the strange thing is that it sees another
partition too, like this:

DISK2:
Partition.....Type...........Size.....Used.....Free..Status..Pri/Log
(*)...........Unallocated....7.8MB....0.0......0.0...None....Primary
DATA (D.....NTFS...........156GB....137GB....19GB..None....Primary

It seems as if I should be able to get this back since it still exists
& PM can see it, but I'm not sure of how to proceed... couldn't find
a "My NTFS partition disappeared wizard"

Anyway, what is the (*) 7.8MB partition? Should I delete it since
it's in front of my "real" partition?

Also, when I right-click on the DATA (missing) partition and "check
for errors", it reports many Error 45 - CRC error in data errors.
Does this until I get a "Error #983 Too many errors found, process
halted."

When I go into the "File Browser" it doesn't show any entries - just
the root D:\ with nothing in it (even though it says 137GB is used).

So... anyone know the process to fix this with PM 8.0? Do I need
another tool instead to get XP to recognize the partition?

Thanks!

 

[ajf3]

Just tried a chkdsk and I get a bunch of "File record segment XXX is unreadable", then it says chkdsk cannot continue in read-only mode....

Should I let it have a go at fixing the errors?

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: ajf3
Just tried a chkdsk and I get a bunch of "File record segment XXX is unreadable", then it says chkdsk cannot continue in read-only mode....

Should I let it have a go at fixing the errors?

Yeah, let it check for bad spots on the drive as well.

 

[ajf3]

Thanks for the tips guys, but it quickly progressed to the infinite chirping squeal of death stage & wouldn't let the machine boot anymore when it was attached.

Filed an RMA - less than 2 months old!