Partitions showing as 'unformatted'

Murgatroyd

I have my HD split into four partitions, C:, , E, & F:. Yesterday evening I had a system crash like I'd never had before - the standard blue screen appeared for about 1/10th of second, then the computer reset itself, and on reboot came up with the message 'Invalid system disk'.

More worryingly than this, two of my partitions (D: & E: ) are showing as unformatted. I have a heck of a lot of data on them that I don't want to lose, so does anybody know of any way to retreive the data from these partitions? I know it's still on there somewhere.

I usually backup in the first week of the month, but of course, I hadn't done it yet this month :mad:

I'm using Windows Home XP SP2, if that makes a difference. I've stuck an old HD in temporarily which at least allows me to do this. Thanks in advance.

superscaper

See if there's anything useful here
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=519366&highlight=data+recovery

Good on you for being regular with your backups but it's nowhere near frequent enough. Obviously you don't need to backup the entire disc every day (monthly for that is fine) but certainly commonly changed/added to directories need to be done far more often. I do at least some form of backing up at least daily (this does not have to be done manually).

Murgatroyd

Things have gone from bad to worse. I tried to recover some of the files using a program called Test Disk, and now the last two partitions (E: & F: ) have disappeared completely. I'm without a paddle, so to speak.

darich

if possible, remove all your hard disks and connect them to a working computer as additional drives. With a bit of luck you should be able to see the drives and all their data. Either burn that data to disc or copy to another good hard drive.
Put your own drives back in your machine, format, load windows and COPY (not move) your data back onto the discs.
It's happened to me a couple of times and so far I've always managed to get it back.
Had a big scare when i was the photographer at a wedding and the wedding photos disappeared!!! Luckily, connected the drive to another machine and they were fine.
Good luck

Murgatroyd

Thanks darich, I'll give it a go.

Murgatroyd

Bumping this because despite my best efforts, I've had little success getting any information off the dodgy HD.

I've been mulling over whether it's worth contacting a professional data recovery firm, though I'm not sure how expensive that would be. Also, there may *cough* be some stuff on there that I downloaded via p2p or torrent, and I wonder where I stand about this. Would the firm be obliged to report it, or would they offer complete discretion (as long as it's not perverted stuff, which I hasten to add it's not).

Further to this, I bought a new HD and started re-installing everything at the weekend. It's been working fine, but earlier this evening the computer just spontaneously reset itself. Maybe other problems are afoot.

albertross_2

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=522167