Hard drive Problems.

[Clstrphbc_donut]

My PC usually runs 24/7. Got up, switched on the monitor, and it had obviously rebooted and I got the "System Disk Failure - Insert System Disk and reboot" error.

Checked the bios, and it had mixed up my hard drive priority. I put my XP drive first, saved and exited.

ChkDsk ran, it got into XP and I noticed my media drive was missing. Opened up Computer management and it was there, although saying it wasn't intialized, and I then got a pop-up saying XP wanted to format it. I cancelled this, as I wanted to attempt tp gain access to the drive and it's files. I downloaded a free version of Stellar Phoenix NTFS and this shown me all my files and folders were still on the drive. At this point the computer rebooted. It was an instantanious reboot, no BSOD, or halt, it just flicked the monitor off, and started booting.

When I got back into XP, my media drive was back, but when I went to explore it, it wanted me to format it. I cancelled this, opened up Phoenix NTFS and all the folders were intact, but obviously no files were as Music read "0MB" as did Videos. I rebooted again, and now Disk Management is telling me my 279GB drive is now a 4mb MBR. Performance also, sucks.

Took the media drive out of my PC, and tried it in another PC. It's showing as a foreign MBR. I've tried 6 different recovery programs, all to no avail.

It seems I've lost all the data to me. Could it be a flakey boot drive thats caused this? (http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=79841)

Either way, Im stumped, and speechless.

Thanks.

[Clstrphbc_donut]

Anyone?

Sorry to be inpatient but if the data is gone, I'd like to format it and start again asap.

Thanks.

[Steve B]

create a dos disk and boot into dos, type fdisk /mbr and push enter and that should re-write the master boot record. if that doesn't work then im stumped

[Clstrphbc_donut]

Is there any chance it could've wiped that drive and wrote the MBR to it without my knowledge?

Oh, forgot to mention I am dual-booting Vista & XP.

[Steve B]

unless it was initiated by u, then i doubt it

[Clstrphbc_donut]

Created a MS Dos Startup Disk and it doesn't recognise that command.