Free Space/Used Space = 0
MusicalMonkey85
Ok, I just got home from work and I am being asked to work on my moms
computer. The PC starts loading windows XP and then restarting(it just
gets to the windows XP screen). When i connect the drive to my PC to
scan it, it says done right away. The hard drive is showing that there
is 0 bytes free, and 0 bytes used will I pull up the properties.
My first thought is that the drive is completely corrupted and and all
the data is lost. However it is showing XP loading up and then
crashing, so some information is being accessed.
For now I am just going to order her a new drive and get her PC up and
running, however I would like to recover the data.
The drive is also an IDE.
Does anyone know what the problem could be? And if it can it be fixed?
Rod Speed
> Ok, I just got home from work and I am being asked to work on my moms
> computer. The PC starts loading windows XP and then restarting(it
> just gets to the windows XP screen). When i connect the drive to my
> PC to scan it, it says done right away. The hard drive is showing
> that there is 0 bytes free, and 0 bytes used will I pull up the properties.
> My first thought is that the drive is completely corrupted and
> and all the data is lost. However it is showing XP loading up
> and then crashing, so some information is being accessed.
Thats just the early boot phase of XP which doesnt
use much in the way of files to put that on the screen.
> For now I am just going to order her a new drive and get her
> PC up and running, however I would like to recover the data.
> The drive is also an IDE.
> Does anyone know what the problem could be?
If its an NTFS formatted, it may just be that NTFS is quite picky about what it sees.
> And if it can it be fixed?
Try booting with a Linux live CD like Ubuntu and see if it can see the contents of the drive.
If it can, you will be able to recover most of the files you want off it.
If that doesnt work, one of the recovery systems may work. I like
Easy Recovery Pro, but it aint cheap if you have to pay for it.
Horst Franke
> The PC starts loading windows XP and then restarting(it
> just gets to the windows XP screen). When i connect the drive to my
> PC to scan it, it says done right away. The hard drive is showing
> that there is 0 bytes free, and 0 bytes used will I pull up the
> properties.
Hi MusicalMonkey85
this very much looks like a corrupted partition table.
The original OS and your PC will have no idea of the partitioning and
thus reported 0 bytes or nothing found.
> My first thought is that the drive is completely corrupted and and all
> the data is lost. However it is showing XP loading up and then
> crashing, so some information is being accessed.
NO, you just lost the index info!
> For now I am just going to order her a new drive and get her PC up and
> running, however I would like to recover the data.
There's no need for a new drive. It's just a logical error!
> Does anyone know what the problem could be? And if it can it be
> fixed?
As I said above the partition table is corrupted.
Try a tool that is able to "undelete partitions" or use a disk editor
to rebuild the partiton table by yourself.
But this needs indepth knowledge.
You may start with defining the whole HDD as a single partition.
This should recover the system boot partition.
Then you can break down to recover any further partitions.
Your problem is simply a defect of about 64 bytes:
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
or http://www.google.de/search?q=partition+table&rlz=1I7GGLL_de
Any of those hits should give you an idea of how to recover your problem.
Horst