Lost Partition & Folders...Please Help!

[Francisco]

System Details:
Windows 2000 SP4
Pentium 4 2.8 (Stock speed), 1GB Corsair ValueRAM (Timing set by SPD)
Abit IS7 (Latest BIOS)
Seagate 7200.7 160GB HD connected to PATA port 0 (1 partition-Video Files
with NTFS)
Hitachi 7K250 250GB HD connected to SATA port 0 (3 partitions: 1st-Boot and
3rd-Video Files with NTFS, 2nd-Data with FAT32, later NTFS)

My story:
This system has been running flawlessly since I first put it up 6 months
ago, using new components. About 3 weeks ago my documents folder (on
Hitachi, 2nd partition) suddenly cannot be accessed, Windows Explorer still
shows the folder name but when I click on it the "Cannot Access" error
message poped out. Recovery Console's CHKDSK /P only yielded an "Found.000"
folder and with over 30,000 errors. After restarting the folder was gone so
I had to restore it from a backup.
Last week the same problem happened with two other folders so I thought that
there was a problem with the partition and I did a complete reformat of this
partition using NTFS (it had FAT32) and reloaded all my files to this
partition. Checked this HD using Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test but found not
errors. The 2nd partition ost all its contents several times after
re-starting Windows and only CHKDSK /P could recover some files; some others
couldn't be recovered at all. FIXMBR told me something about non-standard
or damaged MBR and warned about erasing all data. I did not proceed.
As a precaution I copied all data on the Hitachi (about 100GB) to my other
HD, Seagate, which did not have any problems previously. After another
reboot, the entire partition on my second HD (Seagate) was gone, Windows and
Partition Magic showed the space as "Unalocated".

My Questions:
1. What can possibly be the cause of these problem? I checked Sata/Pata
cables (visually), RAM (using Memtest), CPU (stock speed). All seemed to be
working perfectly.
2. How can recover my lost partitions and files?

Thank you.

 

[Rod Speed]

System Details:
Windows 2000 SP4
Pentium 4 2.8 (Stock speed), 1GB Corsair ValueRAM (Timing set by SPD)
Abit IS7 (Latest BIOS)
Seagate 7200.7 160GB HD connected to PATA port 0 (1 partition-Video Files
with NTFS)
Hitachi 7K250 250GB HD connected to SATA port 0 (3 partitions: 1st-Boot and
3rd-Video Files with NTFS, 2nd-Data with FAT32, later NTFS)

My story:
This system has been running flawlessly since I first put it up 6 months
ago, using new components. About 3 weeks ago my documents folder (on
Hitachi, 2nd partition) suddenly cannot be accessed, Windows Explorer still
shows the folder name but when I click on it the "Cannot Access" error
message poped out. Recovery Console's CHKDSK /P only yielded an "Found.000"
folder and with over 30,000 errors. After restarting the folder was gone so
I had to restore it from a backup.
Last week the same problem happened with two other folders so I thought that
there was a problem with the partition and I did a complete reformat of this
partition using NTFS (it had FAT32) and reloaded all my files to this
partition. Checked this HD using Hitachi's Drive Fitness Test but found not
errors. The 2nd partition ost all its contents several times after
re-starting Windows and only CHKDSK /P could recover some files; some others
couldn't be recovered at all. FIXMBR told me something about non-standard
or damaged MBR and warned about erasing all data. I did not proceed.
As a precaution I copied all data on the Hitachi (about 100GB) to my other
HD, Seagate, which did not have any problems previously. After another
reboot, the entire partition on my second HD (Seagate) was gone, Windows and
Partition Magic showed the space as "Unalocated".

My Questions:
1. What can possibly be the cause of these problem?

Anything common to both drives, the motherboard,
the hard drive controller, the system power supply.

I checked Sata/Pata cables (visually), RAM (using Memtest),
CPU (stock speed). All seemed to be working perfectly.

You can get that result with an intermittent
motherboard or power supply problem.

 

[Joep]

My Questions:

Anything common to both drives, the motherboard,
the hard drive controller, the system power supply.


You can get that result with an intermittent
motherboard or power supply problem.

Also a thing to verify is if enablebiglba is true. Refer to www.48bitlba.com
for more info.

 

[Francisco]

Rod,
Thanks for your suggestions. I will try with different motherboard and
power supply and post to this NG with results.
Any suggestions on how to recover the lost partition? By the way, the lost
partition already contained about 50GB of data before I copied the
additional 100GB. What puzzled me was that the whole partition became
"unallocated".

 

[Francisco]

Joep,
I am pretty sure that it has nothing to do with the 48-bit addressing. I
had used both drives at their capacity, without any problems for more than a
few months. However, I will give it a try and post the my finds.
Thanks!

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod,
Thanks for your suggestions. I will try with different
motherboard and power supply and post to this NG with results.

I've changed my mind on the controller, didnt notice one is PATA
and the other SATA on the first read, so its unlikely to be the controller.

Any suggestions on how to recover the lost partition?

Fraid not, others know far more about that than I do.

I'd see what Easy Recovery Pro makes of it, but it isnt free.

By the way, the lost partition already contained about 50GB
of data before I copied the additional 100GB. What puzzled
me was that the whole partition became "unallocated".

Either thats a coincidence, of you do actually have a 48 bit
problem and you didnt in fact fill the drives until recently,
so you have only seen the wrap around problem lately.

Wrapping around can certainly stomp on what the OS uses
to specify the partitions and can get it to decide that the
space in unallocated. But so can hardware problems too,
it doesnt take much for 2K to wash its hands on a partition
if the basic structures get stomped on by something.

 

[Eric Gisin]

You mean you filled up the volume? Only then does corruption show up, just like
you detailed.

You can also cause corruption by running chkdsk from recovery console, as it
does not have the registry hack.

 

[Zvi Netiv]

Joep,
I am pretty sure that it has nothing to do with the 48-bit addressing. I
had used both drives at their capacity, without any problems for more than a
few months. However, I will give it a try and post the my finds.
Thanks!

Seconding Joep's advice, and Eric's. The 48 bit LBA addressing will only
manifest itself only when writing past the 137 GB boundary. Ant such write will
be rolled back to the first 137 GB storage area, and overwrite data already
existing there.

If by any chance, the vanished partition was created to start above the 137 GB
boundary, then the extended partition sector was actually written in the first
part of the disk and could be accidentally overwritten in normal operation,
before filling the first 137 GB.

IMO, the problem you described perfectly fits Joep's suggestion.

Regards, Zvi

 

[Francisco]

Ron,
After I edited the registry all seemed to be working now.
Although I am still looking for a way to recover the lost partition.
Thank you so much for your help. You guys are the best.
(I included a link below so anyone who had similar problem and read it:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098 )

 

[Francisco]

Joep,
I added the registry key as you suggested and it seems to be working.
I have copied a link to Microsoft's support docs so that someone having the
same problem can refer to:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098
Thank you very much for your insightful tip.

 

[Zvi Netiv]

Ron,
After I edited the registry all seemed to be working now.
Although I am still looking for a way to recover the lost partition.

No chance since the problem was resolved after enabling 48 bit LBA. The "lost"
partition root wasn't lost but overwritten.

Regards, Zvi

 

[Joep]

No chance since the problem was resolved after enabling 48 bit LBA. The "lost"
partition root wasn't lost but overwritten.

Hi Zvi,

Well indeed I wouldn't try fixing it. But since the file system was NTFS,
possibly indivdual files and folders (that weren't overwritten and of which
the MFT entries aren't overwritten of course) can still be recovered using
file recovery software. We don't know what chkdsk did however. If the MFT
and all are hosed you may be able to recover files based on their headers.

 

[wemaole]

I suggest you use partition table doctor to repair your partition
table!

It provides very useful functions: Backup partition table, Restore
partition table, Rebuild partition table, Fixboot.

see more:http://www.ptdd.com