File or Directory is corrupted and unreadable - Damaged logical drive? 2

[Davidmc555]

I have a serious problem. After about having XP Pro on my PC for over a year and filling it up with Apps and general crap, I thought I'd give it a clean out. When installing XP back then I had the foresight to use Partitions. Of my 160 GB Hitachi Deskstar, 130GB was used as the windows partition (C and 25 was held as spare space to be used in formatting. (F

And that's what happened. I put on all my music, game saves, documents, uni work, private work, work work, just about any important stuff I've gathered over the last few years, onto that F: Logical drive.

So, I formatted the C:, reinstalled windows and went to get the data of F: (Now called D and got the message

"D:\ is not accessible.

The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"

So, anyone have any tips or help on getting this precious data of this doomed logical drive please? Somebody in another forum mentioned the GetDataback app but it has a $69 licence and would like to avoid using it. I'm not even sure it would fix my problem as it seems focused on damaged HDDs and I don't think it is that.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[G0AOZ]

You don't say whether partition(s) formatted NTFS or FAT32. Have you looked at this partition from within XP using Disk Management? And if you can see it there, does it have a drive letter assigned, and if not have tried to allocate one?

I'm quite sure the GetDataBack application could be used if your data partition has become damaged, corrupted or wiped. How much data it could retrieve depends upon what may or may not have been placed on top of it...

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[linney]

Your hard drive manufacturer will have free diagnostic software which will check your hard drive thoroughly.

It wouldn't hurt to run ChkDsk /r on that drive from the Recovery Console, you could also look at the FixMbr command while there.

How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

PC Inspector File Recovery (freeware)

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm

HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP (Q308421)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/4/21.asp

What Service Pack version of XP have you ended up with?

How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

Cannot View NTFS Logical Drive After Using Fdisk

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;310359&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309000&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q308/4/21.asp

 

[Davidmc555]

Thanks for getting back to me. Unfortunately I won't be back at that PC until tomorrow evening but I will check all that you have given me.

@GOA0Z

I had thought about the file system format but only remembered after having turned the PC. Both partitions before the format were NTFS, but now the windows partition (C is NTFS as before and the troublesome partition (Now D is described as 'RAW' in both Disk Management and Properties on right click. Looking in Disk management, the partition has a green border meaning it's an extended partition.

Nothing will have been written over it, at least not by me intentionally. I really can't say whether windows overwrites active partitions on install as I'm not sure.

@linney

Like I said above, I'll take a better look tomorrow evening. Thanks for all the links, much appreciated.

I tried chkdsk /f /r when I first discovered the problem from a cmd prompt but it merely flashed up an disappeared. I'll be sure to try it from the Recovery console instead.

The install of XP was an up to date SP2 pack when I formatted and I've just installed SP2 again and getting all updates. The disk itself is an old non SP issue of XP Pro.

Once again, thank you both for your help, I'll try your suggestions as soon as I get the chance. Much appreciated!

 

[linney]

In Disk Management (on this machine) the Green boundary means nothing what is more applicable is the thicker color of at the top of the boundary. You can easily right-click on the drive in question and if it says "Delete Logical Drive" as one of the options, then that is what you have.

As it says RAW it may also not be formatted.

 

[Davidmc555]

Eh.. You're not gonna believe this...

I went into disk management, looked at the partition. It now says New Volume D: 25.39GB, NTFS, Healthy.

Odd I thought. Windows button+E, clicked on D:, I'm in!

The only thing that's happened since is I've updated XP Pro to SP2 last night, could that have something to do with it?

Anyway, thank you both for your help. I'm just so happy my data is safe.

Let this be a lesson to others, don't save time by not burning to DVD.

Once again, thanks!