[Chores]

Help ! I have got 2 drives, C & E, and everything was working fine till one morning I got a blue screen on start up, memory dumping etc etc. Turned out to be a corrupt memory card (I got 2 of them). Card was replaced but sadly lost all data on my C drive in the process ! Unfortunately, my E drive (still containing 60GB of data !) is now no longer accessible but it does show up in device manager with no problems. Under drive manager it shows up as unallocated. So far, all the advise given meant to reformat the disk and subsequently I will loose all the data of my E drive as well !! Isn't there another way without having to loose all the data ? Also, I've got a little programme monitoring the temp of the 2 drives and the E drive does show up on the result screen, so it's there, got power etc etc

 

[bonk]

Do you mean you lost all data on your C drive because of faulty memory.....co have you re installed your Operating System on your C drive with the new memory in and now the E drive just says Unallocated?

 

[Triple6]

You may be able to recover the files using data recovery software like this: http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

 

[Chores]

Do you mean you lost all data on your C drive because of faulty memory.....co have you re installed your Operating System on your C drive with the new memory in and now the E drive just says Unallocated?

Yes, replaced faulty memory card, and installed XP again. E drive does not show up on 'my computer' but is present just about everywhere else.

 

[Elvandil]

How does it appear in Disk Management (Is that what you mean by "drive manager"?)? Have you hidden E: from My Computer with TweakUI or similar?

Try the recovery software. If you use the right one, you can nearly always get your data back. I have had good luck with Ontrack's Easyrecovery. But there are many others. Try the recommended PCInspector one since it is free.

 

[Chores]

How does it appear in Disk Management (Is that what you mean by "drive manager"?)? Have you hidden E: from My Computer with TweakUI or similar?

Try the recovery software. If you use the right one, you can nearly always get your data back. I have had good luck with Ontrack's Easyrecovery. But there are many others. Try the recommended PCInspector one since it is free.

Under Device Manager the drive is mentioned without any faults/problems. Under Disk Management the drive is mentioned, showing the data is still there but that the drive is not allocated. I have not hidden the drive , it just doesn't show up anymore under My Computer nor is the drive accessible.

I have downloaded the PCInspector programme, but when I tried to use it a warning came up saying I might loose all data and 60GB is a lot of data to loose, so, reluctant to use it.

 

[JohnWill]

Note that you have already lost all of the data, you're trying to get it back. Any data recovery application will have a similar warning, but you're going to have to trust one of them.

 

[Chores]

Note that you have already lost all of the data, you're trying to get it back. Any data recovery application will have a similar warning, but you're going to have to trust one of them.

The data is not lost (yet!) I hope, otherwise it wouldn't be showing up as 'used space'. All I want is to have access to my E drive again and the data it contains and I'm not sure why I should have to 'recover' the data as the drive is showing up everywhere as being there except under 'my computer' (it does say I have a floppy drive which I haven't !). Also, if recovering the data does work without loosing any, where would it be recovered to and will I have access again to my E-drive? (my C-drive is only 60GB)

 

[crjdriver]

When you use data recovery type software, it recovers the files to another drive. You cannot recover data to the same physical drive.
I would guess you are getting the unallocated msg due to some partition corruption and or damage to the drive.
Your choices are as pretty slime here.
1 Run the software
2 Take the drive to a data recovery shop [probably somewhat expensive]
3 Restore data from a backup [I assume you have backed up important info]

 

[Elvandil]

When you run a recovery program, you will need to put the recovered data somewhere. You can make a folder on your working drive and recover data to it. When it is full, burn the dtat to CD or move it off the drive to make more room, or send it to another location on your network, if you have one.

After all the data is removed, you can repartition and reformat your drive to get it back. You will not be able to just normally access that drive to get to your data so long as the file system has problems. Your computer doesn't know where on the drive to look for the dtat without a functioning file system.

You could try a partition recovery program like Testdisk, but it would still be a good idea to try recovery of the data first so that any manipulations you make on the drive don't make the data even further unrecoverable. The data is "lost" now, though, we hope, not completely.

 

[Chores]

How does it appear in Disk Management (Is that what you mean by "drive manager"?)? Have you hidden E: from My Computer with TweakUI or similar?

Try the recovery software. If you use the right one, you can nearly always get your data back. I have had good luck with Ontrack's Easyrecovery. But there are many others. Try the recommended PCInspector one since it is free.

Right, after a lot of trying it turns out that the PCInspector is just a demo, it doesn't do a thing. I have used a trial version of OntrackEasyrecovery and it appears all the files are still there and intact and recoverable but the trial version doesn't allow the actual recovery process and the working version seems somewhat expensive.........

Any suggestions ?

 

[bigbear]

Where did you download it from ? it should be a free working software
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm

 

[JohnWill]

The OnTrack EasyRecovery is the best option. I will say that PC Inspector is a fully working version, there is no "demo", it's freeware.

 

[Chores]

Where did you download it from ? it should be a free working software
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/download.htm

Downloaded it several times, still the same result, no option to recover files

 

[bigbear]

Downloaded it several times, still the same result, no option to recover files

Strange!! Have you tried the one Johnwill posted? although I think you might get the same problem.
You might care to read this thread which uses Linnux to access the data
http://forums.techguy.org/hardware/531740-hard-drive-failure-data-recovery.html

 

[JohnWill]

I've used it several times, and it certainly was able to recover files for me.

 

[Triple6]

Me too.

I like this software as well: http://www.runtime.org/ (GetDataBack)
But its not free.