[jambo101]

Hi,

I have a 250GB Western Digital hard drive with a ~195GB partition formatted as FAT32. The partition is called "Documents" and has the letter C: assigned to it. The rest of the hard drive isn't formatted. The operating system (WinXP) is installed on a different hard drive.
Since yesterday in My Computer or Explorer it's called "Local Disk C:" and whenever I click on it I get a box that says "The disk in drive C is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?". For two hours it came back and I backed up all the most important information but then the same problem came back again. I was able to see the contents of the partition through a few applications but not access it. My whole computer is working sluggish since this happened.
I think it happened when I was transferring some video files from another hard drive to this hard drive and everything got stuck and I had to restart my computer. When the drive came back for a brief time and I clicked on the folder I was tranferring to I got a message that it's corrupt.
I tried running my anti-virus and anti-spyware (zonealarm) but nothing came up. If I disconnect the drive's power it says "NTLDR not found" when I turn on the computer.
Please help me, the drive is my "My Documents" folder and all my pictures and word files are on there. If you need any other info I'll try to provide it ASAP.
How can I fix the partition?

Thanks a lot

[Aitrusskyy]

It sounds very strange how you have things set up. When you unplug the drive and it says NTDRL missing, this sounds like part of your Windows Installation files are on the Documents drive (which is causing that issue) even though the windows installation is on another hard drive.

I would try ensuring both drivers are properly set. The windows drive needs to be the MASTER drive and the documents drive needs to be the SLAVE.

However if NTDRL is on the documents drive, then it probably needs to be the master as it is booting from the information on that drive.


My recommendation is this.

#1 Backup your stuff.
#2 Format both drives.
#3 Plug them back in, ensure the drive that will have windows installed on it is at the END of the cable and set to "MASTER". Be sure the Documents drive is the second drive on the cable (if they are plugged in through the same cable) and set to SLAVE.

If they are each on their own cable then dis-regard and simply make sure the Windows hard drive is in the MASTER IDE or SATA spot.

#4 Ensure the Windows drive has the C: letter.

[jambo101]

Thank you for your reply.

I can't access the files on the Documents drive so I can't back them up. That is the whole problem, I was able to back up the most important files when it was accessible for a short time but I still have many files I need on that drive. I need to make the partition accessible again so I can get all my files before I can reformat it.
I've had this setup for a year and it's been working fine so I don't see why this would suddenly happen.

Thanks

[Aitrusskyy]

If the drive is saying you need to format then it is because the partitions upon it were screwed up or are no longer readable. This would prevent you from accessing files.

The next step I would recommend in this case is attempting to recover the partition.

This should do the trick.
Download and install this to your windows drive.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing.../diskdirector/

Install it, then have it attempt to locate or detect deleted partitions on the documents drive use the automatic mode to detect, then try the manual mode if that doesn't work.. (I believe the trial version of this program will allow you to fully recover the partition without purchasing it).

Once you have recovered it (if), backup all your data if you can. Then you may want to run some type of drive diagnostic to ensure your documents drive is not failing.

[jambo101]

I ran the application and it found the partition without doing any repair or anything. I was even able to view all the files and folders, delete files and create new folders using the explorer built into Disk Director. It says that the full 192GB is used and that there is no free space (which is false). When I try to run check disk it crashes. When I click on properties in the error page it says "File system error: FAT corrupted". Whats wrong?

[ozrom1e]

Some how the FAT = File Allocation Table got corrupted. This is not good. If using acronis program you have enough access to delete and create new folders I would suggest to use this program to copy the files to the other hard drive with windows on it as a backup. The ntldr is missing is becasue all of the boot.ini and its data are located on the C:\ drive and are not visible to the boot drive. I would also suggest that after you get the data from this drive C:\Documents to the other drive you can use a linux distro like ubutu live and be able to burn to a DVD or CD-R if necessary then you might want to re-install windows so it is actually on Drive C:\

[Aitrusskyy]

Yep. I agree with the above. If you can access the files, get them off that drive now while you can.

Either that partition is failing which is strange, or the disk itself is failing. Get your files off now.

I'm not sure if this makes sense but when you install windows, the MBR (Master Boot Record) and boot data needs to be on the main drive, the same drive that windows is on.

It sounds like the Windows files got installed to one drive, while the actual boot files got installed to your documents drive, so one drive cannot work without the other and vice versa. When you unplugged that drive, you probably screwed up the partition tables or the MBR or somehow wrote another one to the documents drive.

Now the drive or computer is confused, the fat partition is non-accessible by windows in the normal, and the partition itself is corrupted.

You need to:
#1 Get your files off while you can in any way possible.
#2 Format the documents drive with a third party formatter (not the formatter on xp cd) like this one
http://partitionlogic.org.uk/
#2 Unplug the documents drive once formatted from the cables and power.
#3 Format the windows drive.
#4 Reinstall windows so that it is on drive C: and the MBR and boot files get written to only that hard drive.
#5 Then plug in your documents drive freshly formatted, and maybe run a disk check utility to ensure the drive is not physically damaged. Then copy your files back to it.

[jambo101]

How can I get my files off?
The explorer built-in to Disk Director can only delete and create folders. There's also an option to copy the whole partition but I don't need it all and have nowhere to put 192GB.

[Aitrusskyy]

I am checking to see if there is a way (there is always a way you just have to find it hang in there.

[jambo101]

Thanks for the help Aitrusskyy...
Anyone have any ideas?

[Aitrusskyy]

About how much data do you have on that drive in GB ?

[jambo101]

About 100GB but I only really need to back up something like 10GB
I've paid attention to something very interesting. When the file explorer in Disk Director is open my computer runs smoothly like usual. The file explorer also shows the real amount of free space which comes out 0 in all the other places.

[Aitrusskyy]

I am trying to think of a way to kind of trick it...

I am thinking you can use the SPLIT option to split the 192 partition into 2 partitions, select the files you want to backup (10GB) and move them to the smaller splitted section (because it allows you to select the folders you want to move to that section) then once the split is complete simply merge the smaller split into the other drives free space or something. Or copy it... that way you can move the documents to the working drive.

Wait a moment on that though, I am going to test this myself.

[jambo101]

Dont waste your time. When I click Split I get the following message:
"E000A0456: Unable to split the partition
Cannot change the existing partition's size or create a new partition on the disk."

[Aitrusskyy]

Attempt to install this on your main drive and see if you can use it to swap files between drives...

It is an alternative to windows explorer.

http://www.freecommander.com/