External drive NTFS file system corrupted

[Guest]

HI. I have a Dell PC P4 2.8GHz 1Gb DDR using Windows XP home edition. I have
attached an USB external drive (maxtor) 60Gb to it for 2 years already. The
external drive was formatted in NTFS and has no boot sector (no windows).
Yesterday, I got a message from windows saying the drive is corrupted. I can
see the drive (L in the windows explorer but when I clicked it, a message
saying "L:\ is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect." When I checked
the drive properties, it says file system: raw.

When I error check it, nothing happens. When I chkdsk l: , the message I got
is "The type of the file system is NTFS. Warning! F parameter not specified.
Running chkdsk in read only mode. Corrupt master file table. Chkdsk aborted.

When I go to disk management, I can see the drive (L , Layout = Partition,
Type = basic, File System = "blank", Status = healthy (active), Capacity =
57.26Gb, Freespace m= 57.26Gb %Free = 100% Fault tolerance = No.

The drive should be about at least 45Gb full. I have a lot data inside which
is backed up previously from my old PC and I desperately hope I can get these
data back as much as possible. Please help.

 

[Guest]

To chk the drive,boot to xp cd,recovery,type:CHKDSK L: /R Once thru,type:
EXIT Reopen in xp.Also,download maxtors MS-DOS drive chk utility,install to
a MS-DOS formatted floppy,restart pc,boot to floppy,run the test(s)...Also,
maxtors hds are good for only about 2 yrs (if that),so expect to find a hd on
its last leg,youre better off next time purchasing a seagate hd,it carries
a 5 year
warranty,maxtors is 1 year...