harddrive suddenly lost all its data........

[erichui]

hey there, just got a problem with my harddrive which is pretty new (around 3weeks old)
so i used to have a maxtor 60gb drive and its been 2years and has been very reliable.
so i just recently bought a new maxtor 300gb SATA drive with 16mb cache.
havent really had time to put the OS into the new drive but has format it so that i can put some data on it for the mean time..
so the new drive is divided in 2 partition using the tools that windows provides.
so today i was just trying to install the OS into the new drive and has left the data in the harddrive while attemping to do a OS install.. so using my windows CD to boot up. everything seems fine and loading.. (i unplugged the old 60gb harddrive also) then here came up the screen that shows the partition of the harddrive.......... here it shows 130gb of space..........
(i had it divided up as 100gb and 200gb) so i was thinking strange..
then i thought maybe something went wrong so i plugged back my old drive which still got windows XP installed on it.. then i click my computer and can only see 3 drives left instead of
4 (my 60gb harddrive is also divided in 2 partition) so i was right clicking the partition on the new harddrive , which was formatted as NTFS , now shows up as RAW data format..............
so nows it seems that i have lost all my data on the drive..
i havent try to reformat or do anything yet to the drive, and have tested the drive using the maxtor tools and everything seems fine so far.. so i am wondering if there is any chance to get my data back?? (i would guess a no but its worth asking, and THIS has taught me a lesson for backing up all my data.... i had 3years+ worth of music mp3s collection and also pictures stored on it..................) and also.. if there is no way of getting my data back and if the maxtor tools is showing that the harddrive is working fine (like passing all the test and etc) so i should jsut reformat the drive and continue using it?? or should i try to get a replacement?...............
thanks for any advice.

[nomar]

Which partition do you think is missing? And in what order is it? (IE is it partition 2 which is your data or the 1st partition?).

It is showing 130GB because it is seeing the 200 and can't read anything over 137GB by default. The XP boot CD (assuming its not SP2) doesn't know how to read anything over 137GB and neither does your motherboard's BIOS. That's not a big deal though.

If you really can't see it when you run on your old 60GB drive then I'd say you really are missing that partition and it might all be lost. You could try to boot with a live linux CD like Knoppix to see if it sees the correct partitions.

[erichui]

Which partition do you think is missing? And in what order is it? (IE is it partition 2 which is your data or the 1st partition?).

It is showing 130GB because it is seeing the 200 and can't read anything over 137GB by default. The XP boot CD (assuming its not SP2) doesn't know how to read anything over 137GB and neither does your motherboard's BIOS. That's not a big deal though.

If you really can't see it when you run on your old 60GB drive then I'd say you really are missing that partition and it might all be lost. You could try to boot with a live linux CD like Knoppix to see if it sees the correct partitions.

well now it just shows 1 partition which is neither of the partition that i created..
and i had all files stored on my 2nd 1 which is now missing..
and that when booted in windows using my old 60gb drive it is really missing.. well i guess i might go try something else like linux as u said and hope that i can recorver something.
thanks.

[IanG]

It should be recoverable. Try using 'drive rescue' Link (http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32/driverescue19d.html) - it's saved my data from deleted partitions before.

[erichui]

i cant seem to get the tool to work correctly, maybe because its NTFS isn't completely working??. is there any other tools that u guys might recommend that won't cost me an arm? thanks

[erichui]

just tired quiet a few data recovery demo software including getdataback, drive rescue and Recover My Files which all allows u to scan the drive you would like to recover and list files that you could recover from it.. Out of all those Getdataback for NTFS seems to be the easiest to use and that it allows me to make sure that i can obtain most (if not all) of my files and also allows me to say play it (like videos and mp3s) and pictures for viewing. overall i am very happy with what the software can do and decided that i would buy it (it costs $79USD which aren't excatly cheap, but i feel its well worth it given i can recover 99percent of my files back and i would get a lifetime free updates) i highly recommend ppl to try this software if they run into any data lost problem.

[icemochalatte]

Did you use the big drive enabler from Maxtor's site?

It changes XP's registry entries to enable all space on the drive.

[icemochalatte]

Maxtor BIG Drive Enabler - Linky (http://maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=11)

If you have already done this, then download Easy Recovery Pro (I suggest buying it too) from filemirrors.com (http://www.filemirrors.com/search.src?type=contains&file=recovery&action=Find). It has saved my a$$ many times. Change filename to "contains" and search for "RECOVERY".

DO NOT FORMAT OR DO ANYTHING ON THAT SPACE UNTIL AFTER YOU SCAN WITH THIS UTILITY.

I had a similar problem with the same drive. I did a fresh install of Server2003 onto the drive; just after the install did a reboot and all of the partitions were gone. I was baffled! Sorry for your misfortune, but I am kind of glad to hear that my drive was not the only one to do this.

[erichui]

Maxtor BIG Drive Enabler - Linky (http://maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=11)

If you have already done this, then download Easy Recovery Pro (I suggest buying it too) from filemirrors.com (http://www.filemirrors.com/search.src?type=contains&file=recovery&action=Find). It has saved my a$$ many times. Change filename to "contains" and search for "RECOVERY".

DO NOT FORMAT OR DO ANYTHING ON THAT SPACE UNTIL AFTER YOU SCAN WITH THIS UTILITY.

I had a similar problem with the same drive. I did a fresh install of Server2003 onto the drive; just after the install did a reboot and all of the partitions were gone. I was baffled! Sorry for your misfortune, but I am kind of glad to hear that my drive was not the only one to do this.
hey there, thanks a lot for the information, 1 thing i want to ask tho.. so say my 300gb harddrive is pre formatted say 1 partition of 100gb and another of 200gb.
and i have attepted to install windows XP with SP1 only (my cd only has SP1 not 2)
does that means even tho my first partition only consist of 100gb i will still end up losing the partitions? (both 1st and 2nd, which it did when i tried to install windows on it, but it happened before i even attempted anything, just when it tires to detect which drive to install on, BEFORE installing anything.........)

so is there anyway to work around this limitation or do i have to have backup of that data all the time beofore attempting to format my comp (what i used to do is leave all data on my 2nd partition which will be left unformatted and format my 1st partition, i guess i cant do it now anymore, and no matter what i WILL always backup my data first!! ) :eek:

thanks for any advice.

[icemochalatte]

That is cool. Windows will not detect the larger drive size until then (even through the setup).
Install Windows on whatever size partition <137GB, run big drive enabler and you are al set with 300GB or so minus the partition you already have created.