Hard Drive Problems?

[njven]

Install Partition Magic and found out it was hidden! Unhide fixed it!!! Thanks for all the quick suggestions.

CLOSED!!

I originally had my hard drive configured like this:

OLD CONFIG-

WinVista 40GB C: (Bootloader)

WinXP 60GB D:

File Storage 120GB S:

Ubuntu (ext3) 60GB

NEW CONFIG:

60GB E: Windows XP

DVD-RAM D:

120GB Storage drive (not visible in explorer)

Some of my Vista files became corrupt. I decided to delete the Vista partition and figured I'd just use the WinXP CD to restore the Windows BootLoader after the VistaBootLoader was deleted. Didn't work. Messed with my harddrive and ended up deleting all the partitions except the Storage partition with all my files.

Now I have Windows XP installed and the storage drive is not showing up. Following answers, I installed Partition Find and Mount. It found my S: partition and mounted it. Its not writable? Everytime I reboot I have to run Partition Find and Mount and mount the unwritable partition again. I'll grab a screenshot of Disk Manager.

Full Picture (Magnifying Glass to see clearly)

Everything but delete and help is locked on the Storage partition right click menu.

Edited April 22, 2008 by njven

[spacesurfer]

You really didn't provide any details of exactaly what you did or provide your system configuration details.

How many HDD? How many partitions? How did you recover windows? Did you recover vista or install xp?

Whatever you do, if you can see your partition in ubuntu, i'd back up the data before venturing on.

[JedMeister]

I agree with spacesurfer, backup important data now! Also more info would probably be helpful too!

1) Yes there are many different options for recovering data, I'm sure you'd find a number with Google. They probably range in price from free to $1000s, so it depends on how much your data is worth to you!?! You can get software options that work form within Windows such as PC Inspector (I've used this myself and achieved a degree of success) and other ones that boot into DOS (or similar). Remember too that every time you write to that partition its gonna decrease your chances of recovery.

2) If the partition appears in Disk Manger but not in Explorer, try right clicking in Disk Manager and make sure 'active' is selected. Also check that a drive letter is assigned and if not assign one. Usually changes occur straight away but in some circumstance I've found that you need to reboot.

[PC_LOAD_LETTER]

for #1 id try http://findandmount.com/ before buying anything.

as for #2 ill stay with the crowd and say its prolly just not assigned a drive letter

[Ponch]

You really didn't provide any details of exactaly what you did or provide your system configuration details.

How many HDD? How many partitions? How did you recover windows? Did you recover vista or install xp?

He did now, but it's all in his other thread with same problem. It's not much clearer what he was expecting deleting a Vista partition then try to repair it... and with an XP disk.

Also the partition description do not match the screenshots.

Did you finally recreate and FORMAT the partition ???