Question : After running chkdsk with repair secors D partition data disappears

Hi Team,

After noticing that backups were failing with a data sector read error, I started chkdisk from within Windows to start from bootup with the repair sector option. When the scan was done, it wouldn't boot into windows any longer because windows.sys was apparently damaged, but more disturbingly, when mounting this drive as a second drive in another computer, I could access  data from my C partition, but my D partition appeared in the list of devices in My Computer, but with no information, and more shocking was that Windows asked me if i wanted to format it.  I ran a Diskinternals program to take images of both C and D and scan them for content. When i did this the D partition again was identified as empty.   This partition had much valuable and I really don't want to loose it.

Does anyone have an idea what could have happened to it by simply running chkdsk and steps I might take to bring this information back to the surface?

Thanks,all.

Mark

Answer : After running chkdsk with repair secors D partition data disappears

Thats pretty tough. Chances are without a data recovery service, if the disk is damaged enough you may not be able to get the data off of the disk. You can try this trick, it has worked for me before when someone I was helping had a drive die on them. Try booting from a live Linux boot cd, then attempt to mount and view the data on the drive. This worked when my friends drive would not appear in windows, though it is still going to use the same file system, Linux was able to see the data where Windows could not. You can use any of the live boots out there, ubuntu, or Knoppix, there are a ton out there.