Dynamic Disk lost Partition info. I cant reactivate in XP ! HELP

[Savas]

Hi all,

I am in need of help and would like to know if the program 'Recover My Files' can fix my problem. If anyone thinks it can or has been in a similar situation please tell me as I will gladly purchase (to activate) this program!!! Story is as follows... and thanks for any help in advance...

1.) I have a 200GB WD drive (about 6-8 months now), and it had just Data on it. (everything from Ripped Music Mps, DVD's, Word Docs, Excel files, Save Game Files! ....etc....you name it!) I had put all my 'Data' onto this drive recently in preparation of the new PC Build I did, etc.... (to offload onto my new Drives, i.e: a Raptor and a new Seagate Drive I bought...The Raptor is my system Drive)

2.) The 200GB WD Drive was created as a 'Dynamic Volume' under my 'old PC' setup and was partitioned 50/50 to be read as two drives in XP. This was under my old PC, before rebuilding the new one I have now.

3.) Now when I put togethor my New PC, I just attached the 200GB WD Drive and Windows XP detected the 'Dynamic Volume' even though it assigned different Drive letters to what I had on my original PC. No prob. Cool.

4.) I was doing some file clean up last night (I had temporarily moved all of my important Data files to this 200GB Drive....Lol ....Murphys Law!!!!!!) and started 'defragging' the 200GB Western Digital Drive. I was 50% through defragging one of the partitions, and decided (impatiently) to end the process (it was taking forever, I planned to do something else and then get back to it later). So I just clicked on 'stop' the defrag process (probably a disaster in hindsight?)

5.) Anyways, I was about 15 mins. in after this event when I was playing around with my new Seagate 300GB Drive. I was installing a game on it at the time and during this install process I heard a 'click' sound then like a powering down sound ....everything it seemed at the time was still running fine on my PC.

6.) Its only after a re-boot that I realised that my Western Digital Drive was 'offline'. Being a data drive only and not being accessed at the time I guess I did not become aware of the problem until I tried to access this Drives Data.

7.) Note: The Bios still detects the physical Drive, Windows can detect the 'Physical' Drive but it is 'Offline' and will no longer show the Dynamic Volume Partition info. and therefore I cant see the files! ....I tried 're-activating' the drive under XP's Disk management ....but no cigar! ....The drive seems to be operating fine, no bad disk noises, etc...have no idea why it just switched off like that, though I have connected it to a new Power connector on my new Power supply anyway. I checked all leads, connectors, etc...all seems fine (scary now why did this happen?!?!?)

8.) Anyways, I now I know that the data is still there because I downloaded the demo of the Data recovery software ...'Recover my Files' .... and it can see my Dynamic Drives partitions and the files in it (I had to select the Logical device, etc..as no Drive letters are present) ....so it seems the Drive is still physically ok and working fine

9.) I am still worried though, why did it power down like that? (Could it be my new 'Thermaltake 680W Powersupply' ....i.e: a faulty Power connector????. Or could it be I stopped a defrag process on a Dynamic Drive that was created under another PC setup (i.e: I just plugged this drive into my new setup) Note I had all devices powering off just one lead (as there were enough connectors on it to do this) This should be ok?

10.) Sorry about all the info. but I was wondering if anyone can guide me on this one and can 'Recover my Files' re-establish the existing Partiton Table so that I can read my data, or worse case scenario if I have to recover all my data to another Physical drive will it recover all file types irrespective of what program they were created under (i.e: a 'Game Save' file might have a unique extension for that game, etc....

HELP ALL, and thanks,

Savas...

[GDH]

Hi,

I have no idea what would cause your drive to shut down like that. I would guess that finding our exactly what caused it will be very difficult, if not impossilbe. The only thing you can really do is to go throught the machine and check all the cable connections to make sure nothing came apart. Once you get the data off the drive it would be worth trying to replicate the error again, if possible. It may actually be the drive itself, in which case you could see a replacement.

You should be able to get back all your data. It is hard to know what damage stopping the defrag has done, as the defrag process is changing the Master File Table.

I suggest that you run Recover My Files and try a "Fast Format Recover". In the drive selection window (second wizard screen) you will be able to select the "physical drive" to search. The Fast Format Recover will only take about 30 minutes to run, but does not work in all situations.

If the Fast Format Recover did not work, move to the "Complete Format Recover". Search the physical drive and search only for the default selected file types. At the end of the search it will rebuild the entire old file system (will all files, not just the ones that were selected in the search"). Click on the files in the preview window to preview the contents of the files. If you can see your pictures, documents etc. then they can be recovered once the program is activated.

If the MFT table is really screwed (which is unlikely but possible), then you will have to move to a "Complete File Search". This will get your files back, but they will not have the original file or folder name.

Please let us know how it goes.