Existing drive becomes unpartitioned space

Hi all,

I need help desperately. Any suggestions are welcomed, and thank you in advance.

My main problem:
One of the 3 partitions (H: ) on my 250g HD is detected as unpartitioned space when I run the recovery console on my Windows Installation disc. There is approx. 76gb of data in it. Everything was working fine before the problem occurred.

Specs of my computer:
ASUS P4P800 motherboard
Microsoft Windows XP Pro V.2002 SP2.
Intel Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60C Ghz, 1.00GB of RAM
2 IDE HDs:
-Seagate ST380011A - 80g (C: D: Windows Installed on C: )
-Maxtor 31024H2 - 10g (E: )
2 SATA HDs:
-Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 ST3120827AS - 120g (I: J: K: )
-Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250820AS - 250g (F: G: H: )
4 512mb RAM
File system: All NTFS.

The whole story:
My computer auto reboots from time to time, as well as during shutdown.
One of the error codes I have copied down is:
BCCode=1000008e&BCP1=C0000005&BCP2=80571035&BCP3=B7FB1BB4&BCP4=00000000&OSVer=5_1_2600&SP=2_0&Product=256_1

Last night it happened again during shutdown, but this time it failed to load windows, and the infinite reboot loop started.
This morning the reboot loop still occurred when I started my computer. Configuring settings in BIOS didn't help. Pressed F8, none of the options could get it past the Windows loading screen. I managed to get an error code:
STOP: 0x00000024 (0x001902FE, 0xF7CA26DC, 0XF7CA23D8, 0xF75D6F81)
Something about ntsf.sys and stpd.sys were mentioned. I tried uninstalling daemon and installing stpd v1.50, both didn't help.

However when I unplugged the 250g HD, I could get back into windows with no problem at all. I could access the contents of all 3 other harddrives. So I did a bit research on the web, and suspected the cause to be corrupted ntfs file system. So I plugged on the 250gb HD as well, and used the recovery console to run dir, chkdsk on all drive available.

And I found out:
-The content of one of the 3 partitions (F: ) of 250g HD could be detected, with one or more errors in it.
-(G: ), the 2nd partition had problem displaying the content upon command dir. After repairing errors with chkdsk, directories showed up upon command dir. (I have not looked into the folders though)
-(H: ), the 3rd partition is nowhere to be found. I later found out only the two partitions, F: G: were detected. The remaining space, which used to be H:, became unpartitioned space.

With the first two partitions somewhat "fixed ", I still could not get past the loading screen with the 250g plugged.

My question:
Is there a way to retrieve the data in H:, with minimal data lost?
What will happen if I create a partition in that "unpartitioned space "?
Will the space be formatted, and will the data be lost?


Side notes:
I'm using a trial version of Helexis Drive Health, and I have received the notification of "non-typical S.M.A.R.T attribute value fall. No immediate action required...." for the 80g, 250g, 120g harddrives several times.

I tried switching the cables & power cables between the 2 SATA drives, the working hd still worked, the other still did not.

I heard that File Rescue for NTFS, or some other data recovery program is able to recover data from partitions that has been formatted. Though I prefer not to take the risk, unless there is no other solution.

THANKS A TON for any help!

 

To start, I am a bit rusty on data retrieval, but I can tell you that the best chance of 100% success is to recover the partition. Data Recovery software might only manage anywhere from 40% to 80% depending on the type of files you want to recover. With photos you might get 50%. With any kind of .avi .mpg etc you will be lucky to recover any.

Don’t create a new partition in the unpartitioned space as this will make the old partition completely unrecoverable. It’s also not advisable to run chkdsk or the like as this can do more harm that good when there are partition problems. It can literally scramble files beyond recovery.

You first move should be to download the hard drive manufacturer’s diagnostic software and run checks and repairs on the drive for bad sectors. Modern drives are complex and the manufacturer’s own tools are the best ones to use. Connect the drive up as the sole drive in the machine and run the software from floppy or CD.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=85a34a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=720bd20cacdec010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

Once that is done then you can try again to boot Windows with the drive connected to see if there is any improvement. If not and if it is just now a partition problem, then putting the drive back as the sole drive and running a partition recovery tool from CD or floppy would be your best chance.

TestDisk is a very good free one that I last tried a couple of years ago and had good results with. If you data is important then don’t rush things and make sure you know what you are doing before you proceed.