Lost 40 gigs' worth of data, but the space isn't wiped?

Try GetDataBack for NTFS. It's not a free program, but it allows you to run it in demo mode and it'll show you what it can recover before you buy it.

Well the thing is, the files aren't actually deleted? Just the file pathways are.

would a sys restore work?

Doesn't matter. GetDataBack will find the files on the drive regardless of the amount of directory corruption. GDB ignores all directory structures and builds its own by examining the whole drive, and then allows you to copy all files to another location.

It won't let me system restore at all, and the GDB program would be fine, except I'd have to install Windows to a different hard drive and make my current C drive the slave. I need some way to recover without needing to do all that.

Ouch. Another reminder of why the term "Back-up" really means data should be backed up before it all gets lost.

OK, another idea. Have a friend install the demo Getdataback on his computer. Put your hard drive into his as a slave drive. Then use his to find the missing data on yours. If the missing data is found, you can decide whether or not to purchase the program and use it.

Apparently Norton Utilities can run from the CD and recover files, even on the system disk? So I'll give that a whirl. Looking in computer management under admin tools, my system disk is 'disk 1' and my D: harddrive is 'disk 0'. I guess this doesn't matter/affect the problem I'm having?

If you can get to another computer get a Post Environment OS disk likes Bart's PE or MiniPE and add the program into that. That'll save you from doing a whole heap of swapping and piss farting around.

You can try the Norton Utilities. I've had very mixed success with it, but its better than nothing. The admin tools naming the discs "disc 1" and "disc 0" shouldn't have anything to do with your problem, only something to keep in mind when you're trying to find stuff.

It's not even that I'm desperate to recover the data, but I can't even delete it to free up the space. I'll let you know how Norton goes anyway.

If the data's is of little or no value why not just reformat??

Because it's my system disk and I'd have to reinstall all my drivers/etc.

kinda sucks dont it  

Yup... defraging the page file is a slightly dangerous operation. You need to do some sort of recovery, start by NOT using that PC as any data written to the drive may prevent recovery. "Jsut losing the pointers" is the equivalent of deleting the data, all data is is a bunch of pointers to the start location, without that there is nothing there as far as the OS is concerned.

The thing is, the data hasn't been deleted, as my hard drive space is still being taken up by it, so I need to either free up the space or recover. Hopefully the Norton program will do the trick.

Get Data Back didn't show up the files, I tried it. It's also not hidden files or anything to do with sharing.

Basically what happened was: I ran a pagefile defrag with O&O, logged on to Windows and found one folder 'corrupt and inaccessible'. I restarted, chkdsk ran, and that folder is now simply gone. The space is still taken up, there's still mention of the files in the registry, but the files are simply not linked to at all.

Unfortunately, though the data is still there, it may cost an exreme amount to recover it. Unless the data is very valuable, probably the only answer now to get the lost space back is to reformat the disc and install windows back onto it, followed by all the needed drivers, windows patches, etc. You might be able to save most the drivers and such on a CD or DVD, so that reinstalling them will be faster and easier than downloading them one at a time. That's the only thing I can think of at this point, though someone else might have a better idea.

They're not hugely important, just the fact there's 40 gigs of space I can't delete/reuse is a bit of a pisser. I was thinking format too, I'll keep asking around for a couple of days though.