Defragging Erased My Hard Drive - Help!

[Pete]

I recently used the XP defrag utility on an internal HD which stores
only media files and following a restart XP sees it only as an
unformatted, empty drive.

Anyway to fix or retrieve the files

 

[R. McCarty]

Maybe - but one important thing to note, the more actions you take
on the physical drive the less the chance of recovery. First step is to
use DiskMgmt.Msc to investigate the drive's state. Verify the volume
label is the same as before the defrag was done. Also, check which
format the partition shows (FAT32, NTFS or RAW) or if the space
is shown as unallocated. There are tools to do recovery, but you will
need to be careful about which repair operations to perform. If the
drive was inadvertently formatted there are specific tools to perform
an Unformat operation.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

If the restart occurred during the Defrag, then it is possible that the
drive's partition table (MFT) got clobbered. It is always recommended to
Defrag be ran, if ever, when you are sure the system will not loose power or
restart by its own.

 

[Rock]

I recently used the XP defrag utility on an internal HD which stores
only media files and following a restart XP sees it only as an
unformatted, empty drive.

Anyway to fix or retrieve the files

I answered your other post from 7:30 this am. No need to repost. If you
can't find your post search for it using Google groups advanced search:
http://groups.google.com/advanced_search?hl=en

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

I recently used the XP defrag utility on an internal HD which stores
only media files and following a restart XP sees it only as an
unformatted, empty drive.

What OS version, and is the HD > 137G?
- XP "Gold" (SP0); lethal, avoid > 137G !!
- XP SP1; buggy, may corrupt in certain circumstances
- XP SP2; OK

Anyway to fix or retrieve the files

Yep, tho it's less likely if NTFS.

------------ ----- --- -- - - - -

Drugs are usually safe. Inject? (Y/n)

 

[Baloo]

I recently used the XP defrag utility on an internal HD which stores
only media files and following a restart XP sees it only as an
unformatted, empty drive.

Anyway to fix or retrieve the files

Restore your backup. Don't have a backup? Congratulations, you just
learned you should always keep a backup.