NTFS issues- any hope to save partition?

Okay guys, gonna hope someone with more advanced ability than I have can bail me out here. I am pretty much fully versed in the basic disk management issues, but have never gotten into this spot yet and now have 850gb of data hanging there

Was moving around the data on drives inside of my HTPC because I had made it pretty illogical when I initally shoehorned a Xubuntu dual-boot config in for F@H computing next to the original Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. Somehow, someway, ended up in a spot where Windows won't regonize there is even a drive installed (disk manager or device manager don't show the WD HDD, but it's in the BIOS). Linux says it's an NTFS error. Parted Magic Live says failed disk, even though it's six months old and was working fine prior to the data move. Can't mount the drive in Linux.

Just want to try saving the data- if it has to be copied to a new drive it's no issue. If it can just be reassigned back to an NTFS system setup with the data there, even better...

Help?

Can you see it in Disk Manager or diskpart in Windows?

Nope... doesn't even get recognized if I try to add the device manually in device manager or elsewhere. BIOS will warn me that it's a failed disk, but when I boot into a live linux disc or move the drive to a linux system to view it, the thing is there with the right partition sizes/labels and all, just not accessible to mount or view data.

If I could even just back up the whole stupid drive to an .ISO to real with later, I could at least start replacing the ripped movies and music that were stored on the partition. Right now I have both that 1tb and a second 1tb empty sitting for use to solve this mess....

try booting a live backtrack 5 cd, and using the NTFS recovery utilities... but you need another drive to save it to that has the same amount of storage

unijabnx2000 said:

try booting a live backtrack 5 cd, and using the NTFS recovery utilities... but you need another drive to save it to that has the same amount of storage

Click to expand...

Hey, thanks for the suggestion. Never thought to use something that looks targeted in the security field mostly. Which of the downloads am I trying to use? There is an R1-R4 option it looks like, with each having both 32 and 64 bit versions, so I'm looking to find what makes each unique...

I do have an extra 1tb drive I can use to move everything to. Whenever this is all said and done, I'm keepnig my HTPC stuff in a RAID 1 enclosure in the future so I don't ever need to worry about this type of thing happening again. My fault for letting program file partitions spill over into what should have been my achieve.

Really appreciate the help guys. Thankfully got it sorted out the creative way. Ended up using Ubuntu for a platform to run a VM of windows 7 and was able to use a partition tool in each to tinker with things until I got it copied over to the second hard disk, where the data was all fine. Went back to regular Win 7 and reformatted the drive, moved the data back from one drive letter to another (instead of playing with copying partitions again), and now all is fine.

WHEW.

PS- it takes a long time to copy 850gb of data, even on drives rated for 150mb/s transfer times! I'm backing all this stuff up today on BD-R or going out and getting the stuff for a RAID situation to be done worrying.