Boot Disk Failure - Possible Recovery?

[TonyLukes3]

Hi,

I was working on my PC yesterday transferring large video files edited through Premiere from one hard drive to another. Both drives are SATA drives, the main C: being a Maxtor & the other being a Seagate. I had XP Pro installed, and most of my data is saved under the C: and not in My Documents (after my last crash I lost everything in there and after reinstalling XP Pro I had everything left but the Docs folder so no more saving there). During a file cut and paste, the PC locked up. I restarted, and got the dreaded BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM CD message.

A weird thing happened the day before in that in my recycle bin was the WINDOWS folder - I never deleted it so I suspected a virus. I checked in the C: and the WINDOWS folder was still there so I figured this was a duplicate, however I didn't delete it but tried restoring it. The file disappeared from the recycle bin so I figured it had been restored. I'm thinking perhaps it didn't and got deleted somehow?

Can I reinstall XP Pro and leave the current file system intact after a boot disk failure and still have access to my files? I'm figuring I'll loose my Outlook data which is why I'll end up purchasing the software if it can recover the material. Any help as to how I should go about getting my PC back up would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Sal

[GDH]

I have never heard of the Recycle Bin going to the Windows folder? I can't seem to find any information on this in a Google search either. I am not sure what the problem is here, but if you suspect a virus then you should update your virus scanner and do a full search.

To have the best chance of getting your data back I would not re-install Windows. I would take the problem booting drive to another PC and connect it as the secondary drive. You may be able to then browse your data and get your important files back. If not, you can use Recover My Files to do a search for the lost files.