Lost partitions

Bit of a disaster. The PC commited suicide. First XP wouldn't load so tried a repair install but that failed so as my data was on a different partition from the OS I reformatted the drive and then tried a new install but that failed too on each attempt with various BSOD error messages - all different. :confused

So next I deleted the partition - the C drive - and started again from scratch. At this point the other partition was still being seen - the one with all my data. Again XP would not load - it would get about 50% of the way through loading the files when it would bomb. Thought it may be the XP CD itself so tried another one with exactly the same results. After two or three more attempts I got back to the point where I was going to try to recreate the C drive partition yet again when I noticed the data partition had gone!! :cry

Now I'm guessing the the HDD has just about given up despite being less than three months old. Before I throw it out of the window I'd like to try to get my data back but first need to restore the partitions and any software will need to run froma bootable CD or floppy.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

If you never actually made any physical changes to the data partition, you should be able to access the data (the key word is should). Try using the UBCD4Win (Ultimate Boot CD for Windows) which is a bootable CD full of utilities that runs just like Windows, but it runs from the CD only and doesn't install anything to the hard drive. I have used it MANY times to access data on non-booting drives. Just be sure to boot with an external USB drive plugged in right when you start booting to the CD. If the PC has 2 CD drives, boot to the CD in the non-burning drive and you can use the burner to back up data to. You can also try using the Active@BootDisc. They have a free demo version that has full functionality except for just a few features. Once it's loaded, you can remove it from the drive as it is completely loaded into memory. It's VistaPE based and runs just like Windows also. You can download it from this link. The paid full version is $79.95 and if you do a lot of PC work, it's totally worth it in my opinion.
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!

(all the hard drive makers have diagnostic utilities as free downloads, and many of these tools also have drive repair features)

 

another option is knoppix, its a linux distro, it runs completely from cd,

http://www.knoppix.net/

knoppix can also transfer any files you have (it can read and write to ntfs), as well as being able to burn data,
it has herds of tools if you are that way inclined - all free

(i'm using knoppix at the moment to back-up my linux drive to a windows partition and came out for a nosy while i'm waiting)

 

Well the story so far is that I had a look at the UBCD as recommended by dlb but unfortunately although Active Partition Recovery could see the lost partitions it wouldn't recover them (without buying the full version of Active Partition Recovery) but I then tried the program called TestDisk and that worked a treat even if it wasn't very user friendly. :confused

So I now at least had the partitions back. I then tried (yet again) to install XP but it again fell over when copying the files. So I decided it was possibly a RAM problem so I removed one of the three RAM chips and tried again. This time it fell over even quicker which made me definitely think it was a RAM problem so I took out another RAM chip. This time it fell over immediately with a Trap 0000006 error which meant it was the last RAM chip. That was taken out and one of the others put back in and - at last - success :-D So in the end it was all down to a failed 256Mb RAM stick. :banghead So anyway I'm now updating all of the updates that I'd lost which is a bit tedious but at least it wasn't the HDD and I've got my data back. :celebrate

 

Just a suggestion: Didn't read all the replies yet an excellent way to prevent future loss of OS is to do a image file of each partition which i think is already being mentioned. You can make a new image file as often as you want or do incremental/differential images of the parent full image/(full backup). i have had great success with acronis home image 2009 beta which is free for beta testers. Works really neat. you can restore from a cd or boot time restore manager. Restors and backups are done quickly. New to forums, these are really neat.