Help Please

[bigsmiff]

I have an internal 80g secondary hard drive that is now not accessible. I run the "Recover my files" program on my manually selected D drive and it scans for a second and shuts off. If I run the format recovery, D drive isn't even visible as a drive. When I try to go into my D drive to get something, it acts as if it is a floppy drive now.

If I right click on the drive and go to properties, it is showing zero on storage space. I have never seen anything like it. It is like it went from 80g HD to floppy overnight. Here is what I get when I try to access it:

The disk in drive D is not formatted.
Do you wish to format it now? YES NO


Can someone please help me with this? I used this hard drive solely for storage and have some very important things on it. I know that I should have backed it up on disks, but that is kind of irrelevant at this point.

[GDH]

Hi,

First, listen to the drive to make sure it sounds ok. You should be able to hear the drive spin normally - and there should be no strange noises.

Second, check the drive connections. Is it an internal drive? or in an external usb case? Make sure all the cables etc. are seated and working properly. If it is in an external case, you may like to connect it directly to your PC as sometimes it can be the electronics in the case that are causing the problem so it will rule this out of the equation.

With the drive connected, right click on My Computer and select Manage > Disk Management. In the bottom part of the window, do you see the physical disk listed?

Now use Recover My Files to run a Complete Format Recover. When you get to the drive selection window, what physical drives do you see listed? (you should be able to identify the problem drive by its listed size).

[bigsmiff]

Originally Posted by GDH

Hi,

First, listen to the drive to make sure it sounds ok. You should be able to hear the drive spin normally - and there should be no strange noises.

Second, check the drive connections. Is it an internal drive? or in an external usb case? Make sure all the cables etc. are seated and working properly. If it is in an external case, you may like to connect it directly to your PC as sometimes it can be the electronics in the case that are causing the problem so it will rule this out of the equation.

With the drive connected, right click on My Computer and select Manage > Disk Management. In the bottom part of the window, do you see the physical disk listed?

Now use Recover My Files to run a Complete Format Recover. When you get to the drive selection window, what physical drives do you see listed? (you should be able to identify the problem drive by its listed size).

I did everything that you said but it still remains the same. The computer management suggestion you made did show the drive as healthy (active). But, it is also showing 74.52 capacity 74.52 free space. Anytime I try to access the drive in any way, I get the same format prompts. I noticed that NTFS isn't beside of that hard drive though...nor is FATS. I am almost positive that I put it as NTFS when I installed it.

[GDH]

Use Recover My Files to run a Complete Format Recover. When you get to the drive selection window, what physical drives do you see listed? (you should be able to identify the problem drive by its listed size).