The disk in drive D is not formatted...

[TheFridge]

Hey guys,

Here's my problem. Today I was extracting a winrar file of 4.0 gig, everything went well. (Don't really know if this has got anything to do with it, but to be sure I told you anyway) Then suddenly I noticed that I couldn't use any program on my D disk (western digital 250 gb). I could see all of the files in every map and search my whole disk, but nothing worked, so I decided to see if a restart would help.
After I restarted when I wanted to open my disk I got this message: 'The disk in drive D is not formatted. Do you want to format now?'

If I look at it's properties it says used and free space is both 0 bytes, yet the funny thing is that windows does see the normal disk and at disk management it says the capacity and free space is 232 gb, when actually my free space should be around 100 gb. I have formatted the disk before several times using NTFS, but when I look at disk management now it doesn't say that it's file system is NTFS anymore, but the field is just empty. I don't really want to format, and I'm hoping there's no need for it. I mean, there should be a way to make my disk run normally again, right?

My other disk still works normally, but to bad that one is only 30 gb and only has my OS (winxp) on it.
Of course I ran the troubleshoot, but like always it isn't of much help. I searched quite some forums as well as this one, but could only find some people who have the same problem with an external harddisk. I don't know if that matters, but even at those topics I didn't see a solution.

So.. if there is someone out there that has the answer to my problem, some help would be very welcome

 

[evongugg]

Run the manufacturer's diagnostics and Hitachi Hard Drive Fitness test.
Or install Speedfan and run the SMART test. In any case run the manufacturer's diagnostics.

 

[evongugg]

If you have bad sectors you might want to consider getting Spinrite or use a recovery service if the data is worth a lot to you.
Hopefully you have a backup.

 

[SpudTECH]

Congradulations!!! you have become another victim of a ZIP BOMB!!!! please read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_bomb

They are also Known as Arcive Bombs. Please Read:

http://www.f-prot.com/support/windows/fpwin_faq/90.html

Toss your hard drive in a trash-can, and kiss it good bye.

The Newer versions of these nasty things are 2 terrabytes in size and can create their own partitions.They can't be eradicated without destroying the Hard drive with a demagnitizer.

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Toss your hard drive in a trash-can, and kiss it good bye.

The Newer versions of these nasty things are 2 terrabytes in size and can create their own partitions.They can't be eradicated without destroying the Hard drive with a demagnitizer.

What a load of baloney.

First, I doubt what happened to him was a .zip/archive bomb. Modern virus scanners will catch those things.

Second, software cannot damage hardware on a computer. Might erase some files, might cause some blue screens, but the underlying hardware can't be damaged except by physical faults.

To the OP: Whatever happened, you can most likely recover the files off the drive with GetDataBack for NTFS (see http://www.runtime.org).

I would do as the other poster suggested and run the hard drive manufacturer's diagnostic utility first to rule out any physical hardware problem. (And if there is one, it's purely coincidental with the attempted unzip of the .rar archive). If the hard drive has physical problems and you don't have a backup, then I recommend a professional data recovery service.

 

[TheFridge]

I ran the Wester Digital diagnostics and found out my disk still works right in every way. Then I ran a GetDataBack demo and the program saw every file still on my disk (117 gb), that's what I expected but now I now sure: my disk still works properly and I have no data loss.
Only problem seems to be I just can't get on my disk normally. I think I have to restore the partition somehow, but have no clue of how to do so. Any suggestions?
btw, thanks for the replies so far

 

[SomeJoe7777]

OK. Probably something happened that just messed up the MBR or partition table. Your files are intact. Since GetDataBack was able to identify all your files, I would go ahead and purchase it, use it to copy all your files off to a different disk, then format this disk and copy the files back.

After you get everything situated, time to work out a backup solution.

 

[TheFridge]

Well, yeah that would be my last resort, but I'm thinking there has to be another way right? Atm I'm looking if a program like partition magic would work. I found out that it can't make or resize the partition, because the file system of my disk is gone. I'ts 'unformatted' in stead of 'NTFS'. So if I could somehow restore that filesystem...

 

[TheFridge]

without having to format of course

 

[evongugg]

If you have Windows NT / 2000 / XP, you can boot from startup floppy disks or CD-ROM, choose repair option during setup, and run Recovery Console. When you are logged on, you can run FIXMBR command to fix MBR.

 

[evongugg]

Or google "recover lost or deleted partition". There are several tools for this.

 

[rodney_ws]

Second, software cannot damage hardware on a computer. Might erase some files, might cause some blue screens, but the underlying hardware can't be damaged except by physical faults.

Tell that to the people who wrote the Chernobyl virus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIH_virus

 

[TheFridge]

Great, thanks for all the replies guys. I got partition table doctor 3.5 and with that program it was just one click and my file system got restored. After that I had to restart and windows did a pretty long scan and fix of files, but now a lot of my files are restored. Only the programs and games aren't working anymore, since the files are corrupted now. So that's a petty, but still. Got the rest of it back

So thanks the help guys

 

[rforce]

I'd say that your best plan of attack depends on the value of the data on the hard drive. If the data has any significance and is worth $300 or more, I strongly suggest getting it in for a free quote at a professional data recovery lab. It it isn't worth that much or their quote is too high, then you have nothing to lose by playing with it yourself.

Now, at this point of the game, we don't know why the partition is corrupted. If it is due to bad sectors, why are they there? Are the bad sectors getting worse? I could go on and on with questions that need to be answered before moving further.

I noticed that someone suggested SpinRite. First off, the documentation recommends backing up your data before running the program which is of no use to you. If the drive is stable and has a few bad sectors, it may work. However, upon the program's completion, the corrupt file system may still be corrupt. If there are a lot of bad sectors (I've seen millions), you could result in corrupt firmware. If the heads are the cause of the bad sectors, you may be creating hundreds more for each one that you save. I strongly discourage the use of this program unless you are installing it on a healthy drive that you want to keep healthy.

Another suggestion was to google "recover lost or deleted partition". Again, until you determine the cause of the problem, anything you do first may compound the problem. Usually in situations like yours, my company bills out around the $500 mark. Unfortunately, many people come in after they have run SpinRite and other tools and end up paying thousands of dollars because the problem has been compounded. In other cases, their efforts simply result in the job being unrecoverable all together.

So, going back to my first statement, it all comes down to the value of the data on the drive. Get the free quote. If it is too high, you can either negotiate a lower price, get a second opinion or simply decide to give it a try yourself.

Luke

 

[SomeJoe7777]

Tell that to the people who wrote the Chernobyl virus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIH_virus

Heh. While that was a notable virus, in the most technical sense it still didn't actually damage any hardware. The BIOS of affected machines wasn't destroyed, it was only erased. You can reprogram the BIOS chip with the proper BIOS image and restore full functionality.

Unfortunately, you would probably need to remove the BIOS chip and flash it in an EEPROM programmer, because there is no loader code on the BIOS chip to do it through the floppy drive of the computer. But nevertheless, the chip itself is still in good working order.

There have been a couple verified cases where software could actually physically damage hardware, but they're incessantly rare. See Killer Poke and Halt and Catch Fire.

 

[Sehwag]

I also have the same exact problem as TheFridge and my hard disk is of seagate company. I have installed seagate tools but of no use. I have tried all the other recovery tools everything. exactly same problem. Please hlp me......