This happened a couple months ago and it's time to stop the denial and fix it. I am running XP home on a SOYO P3 Tualatin MB @1.4ghz and 1gig of SDRAM. It has two Maxtor HD's, the first has a single partition, C: for Windows and all programs. The second is divided into two logical drives D (primary) and E (extended). I use D for storing Ghost images of C and E for all personal files/backup.

I built this box myself and have had no real problems with it, or at least nothing I didn't cause myself. A couple months ago, the computer started acting funny, slow responding START window, windows opening slowly, slow restarts, etc. Real basic OS problems, but no errors, warnings, etc. ScanDisk did indicate that there is a reading problem with drive E during startups, but doesn't try and fix it.

I thought it was a virus until I went to click on the E drive and after a 30 second wait, I was told it was unreadable, or not ready. The drive appears on the desktop and during the BIOS post.

I restarted the computer using a simple DOS Floppy startup disk and tried looking at C D and E. C and D no problem, however DOS told me that the FAT file for E is corupt,damaged or unreadable. Can't remember which, the point is that it told me that something is wrong with the FAT file. The other logical drive D on the same HD still works fine both in DOS and Windows. I do not have any images of drive E, drive E is my backup drive! For the record, when I disconnect the second drive (D and E), the computer works fine, when reconnected, the problem is repeatable, so this problem seams definately being caused by a problem with logical drive E (this is my first HD problem ever).

So the question is simple, if the FAT is the problem, can I fix/restore the FAT file for logical drive E only?

Is this the problem? or only what DOS is capable of reporting?

If it was a true HD hardware issue, why does drive D (other partition on same drive) still work? or does this sound like a failing hardrive and the D partitions days are numbered also.

If fixable, is it done in windows or DOS? What website would give me fairly detailed instructions? Including access to any DOS utility programs that will do the job? Does XP have anything included that would correct the problem?

If the drive is a lost cause, what is the best recovery software to get my data, either free or paid?

If I can get the drive back, I plan just to buy another HD and copy E and D to it. But I wonder, was this a software, maybe virus issue? What causes FAT file problems? Can I reformat the drive and still use it? Or is this the start of a dead drive.

Any help in restoring this drive, or getting the data back would be greatly appreciated. :confused:

Thanks,

Lew

Since you can access the hard drive the chance of recovery is pretty good - particularly for all non-fragmented files.

Each partition has its own independent file system so having corrupted FATs on one partition would only affect that partition. When the FATs (File Allocation Tables - which are not files but metadata used in laying out where things are on the partition) are corrupt there is realistically no way of repairing them though good DIY software should be able to recover all or most of the files on the partition.

I would grab GetDataBack for FAT and install it on the good drive. Get it from www.runtime.org and scan your e: partition to see what it is able to recover from it. It is free to then recover files one at a time but you must pay if you want to recover files in batches.

The second is divided into two logical drives D (primary) and E (extended). One can call such partitions logical drives but the term logical is best reserved for describing the partitions within an extended partition. An extended partition is a specialised primary partition that has no drive letter but which can contain a large number of logical drives and which can be identified in a number of ways but pre-eminently with a drive letter.