efernand1

Hi, I purchased a Seagate Barracuda 500 GB 7200.11 with SD15 firmware around 4 years back still under warranty. The HDD was divided into 4 partitions. I used Windows XP Professional x86 with no issues, suddenly in Oct 2012 the Comp was not booting up, tried to repair XP using the Installation CD but no use, The HDD then was not getting detected. I was worried as I have important family data and photos on the drive. Contacted seagate who suggested a firmware upgrade without loss of data. After nearly 3 weeks got the HDD back, put it back in the comp with the cables and powered on, I tried loading XP again and it was not going through..it showed me the 4 partitions which showed as totally free which should not be the case as I had data on it. partitio XP was always loaded on the C drive which was dedicated for the OS only, I am worried now whats to be done ...did I lose my family data stored on the other partions 'D' 'E' 'F' ......the XP installation cound not go ahead as it gave some error stating that Hard Disk is not available or something and installation has to quit. I tried to connect the HDD through USB to my Laptop which shows the partitions. When I try to access the C drive it says in order to use it I need to format it, since it was the OS partition, I went ahead to format which did not happen and populated an error saying unexpected error ....partition not able to format ...please retry..... Appreciate any expert advice on this matter. the HDD is still under warranty till September 2013. Thanks Eddie (India)