I recently purchased a 120GB WD 7200rpm hard drive. I moved my data from 2 old drives (D and E drive letters, not which do not contain the system files).
The unit worked fine for the first couple hours, but then abruptly the volume on one partition went from "Data" to to some gibberish like "Ee#2Elx1#" (I did not think to write it down at the time) under Windows 98SE, and I received a message 'Volume Size is invalid' when attempting to access the partition from Windows 2000 Professional.
I attempted to re-partition the problem partition, after verifying my data was still intact on the first parition of this drive.
Windows 2000 could not format the partition. Subsequently, as I attempted to remove the problematic partition again, I pulled a real bone-head move and deleted the partition which contained all the files from the original D and E drives!
I immediately discontinued anything that would write to the 120GB drive. I allowed a partition recovery program to scan (read only) the drive to attempt to map the original parition table, but it could not find the deleted partitions.
After this I invested in a program called R-Studio which appeared to have been locating my files and folders (still operating in a read only mode). My PC then abruptly powered down (no utility power failure, UPS still working normally)
Now if I try to power the PC on, the CPU, power supply, and additional case fans will twitch as if starting to power on (moving about 1/48th of a rotation, then rocking back to its original position) and nothing else in the system shows any sign of responding.
If I disconnect both hard drives, nothing changes. The C drive was already re-partitioned and had included the original drive E as a logical drive in an extended partition.
Would anyone have an idea:
a) what might have happenned?
b) what I can do to retrieve data of personal value on the deleted partition on the new drive? (I can move the drive to another PC if needed)
c) although not a hard drive issue, any suggestions for troubleshooting the system issue? It worries me because I've seen something similar with another PC, and we ended up just replacing the case, power supply and motherboard and that PC works correctly now. (Power supply/Motherboard failure perhaps?)
Many thanks. I hate to find myself asking something like this, working as long as I have in the computer industry, but I just don't know what to think about this one.
The unit worked fine for the first couple hours, but then abruptly the volume on one partition went from "Data" to to some gibberish like "Ee#2Elx1#" (I did not think to write it down at the time) under Windows 98SE, and I received a message 'Volume Size is invalid' when attempting to access the partition from Windows 2000 Professional.
I attempted to re-partition the problem partition, after verifying my data was still intact on the first parition of this drive.
Windows 2000 could not format the partition. Subsequently, as I attempted to remove the problematic partition again, I pulled a real bone-head move and deleted the partition which contained all the files from the original D and E drives!
I immediately discontinued anything that would write to the 120GB drive. I allowed a partition recovery program to scan (read only) the drive to attempt to map the original parition table, but it could not find the deleted partitions.
After this I invested in a program called R-Studio which appeared to have been locating my files and folders (still operating in a read only mode). My PC then abruptly powered down (no utility power failure, UPS still working normally)
Now if I try to power the PC on, the CPU, power supply, and additional case fans will twitch as if starting to power on (moving about 1/48th of a rotation, then rocking back to its original position) and nothing else in the system shows any sign of responding.
If I disconnect both hard drives, nothing changes. The C drive was already re-partitioned and had included the original drive E as a logical drive in an extended partition.
Would anyone have an idea:
a) what might have happenned?
b) what I can do to retrieve data of personal value on the deleted partition on the new drive? (I can move the drive to another PC if needed)
c) although not a hard drive issue, any suggestions for troubleshooting the system issue? It worries me because I've seen something similar with another PC, and we ended up just replacing the case, power supply and motherboard and that PC works correctly now. (Power supply/Motherboard failure perhaps?)
Many thanks. I hate to find myself asking something like this, working as long as I have in the computer industry, but I just don't know what to think about this one.
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