500gb SATA hdd, partition dead?

i have a 446 gb partition after my 16gb windows one. the windows is working fine. In trying to re-format my ipod, a checkdsk came up saying there was errors, this always happens with my ipod, so i clicked ok.
the problem is, the next day my 446gb data partition was gone. so it obviously tried to fix it, and broke that rather than doing my ipod.

Windows partition manager wont touch it, and the recovery programs seem to think the drive is fine, but it's drive letter is a 1.

it comes up as 1:\

but windows disk management shows it as this:
[url=http://musicdot.co.uk/images/drive%20gone.png][/url]


so what should i do?
i get a 1tb tomorrow i think... so i can image the drive onto that, then maybe reformat the whole 500, re-install windows and restore the image?

or maybe boot into an ubuntu live cd and go change something?

i dont know. i'd be gratefull if anyone can help. my mate does tech support and he's baffled lol!

Hi, i tried various programs actually, including the Acrive Partition Recovery. That thought the drive was fine and that is was also, just 1:\

nothing would let me change the drive letter... so today i installed xp as thats fairly fast, which re-assigned all my drive letters and i can access my data fine.


Thankyou for your reply,
Bugahdug