Hard drive help

[uk rider]

Ok, so two weeks ago my D drive went down. Xp could see it, but if i tried to acces it xp would crash out. Spent about a week dlding programs to try and get my mp3 folder back, it could see some of the files but not all of them. Through command prompt the mp3 folder couldnt be seen but others could. So then after about a week the drive starts working again. For no reason. So i quickly back up my mp3 folder to my C drive. Restart the computer and it wont boot.

After a while of trying to get it to work i give up and format the C drive and reinstall windows. Got it all back up and running yesterday. So then today i plug in the D drive hoping it will work like it did before, but with no luck.

Xp can see the drive and size and space etc but as soon as i open it, it crashes the computer. So i look over the network at it, now i can see all the folders but only some of them will open. The mp3 folder is unable to be opened and the properties of it says its got nothing in it. So i look at the properties of the drive and it says that its 50gb full, this means that my mp3's have to be on there as thats what take up the space.

So can anyone suggest how to get the drive up and running. All i need is to get the mp3 folder of then i can replace the drive. Someone help!!!

Cheers

[yamangman]

Have you run chech disk on it? What does it report? Can you see the drive in the 'Disk Management' part of the MMC?

[uk rider]

whats mmc?

[yamangman]

The management console. Right click my computer > manage

[uk rider]

Well the mmc says its healthy and active. And error checking on the drive when i right click>properties etc wont work. Just stays doing nothing in phase 1.

[uk rider]

Well i just managed to do the error checking, didnt say anything apart from "error checking is complete".

[yamangman]

Open up a command prompt, navigate to d: type and enter 'chkdsk'. Fix any errors you get by typing 'chkdsk /F'. Then perform a suface scan with 'chkdsk /R'. ou may need to dismount the volume first by typing 'chkdsk /X'. For additional info type 'help chkdsk'. Hope this helps.

[uk rider]

Says most the stuff on the disk is entrely unreadable. Does this mean i cant get it back, ive just dont chksk not chkdsk /F yet.

[yamangman]

Just do 'chkdsk /R' and leave it, it might take quite a while depending on the size of your disk. Leave it running till it's done, it might be able to help you out.

[uk rider]

Done that. Its deleted all the problem causing folders so i can get into it without crashing. Its deleted my mp3 folder, but the drive still remains the same size. So they cant be totally gone. But i have no idea on how to get it back. Might just give up, buy a new drive and start again.