data gone after reformat and xp install

[protonfusion]

i had a second hard drive (maxtor 300 gigger) just all of a sudden have no data on it.

Basically on my first hard drive i install windows xp sp2 and when i got it all up and running my second drive that was 2/3rds full says that its completely empty. i downloaded max blast and big drive enabler and still cant see anything.... any ideas as to where it all went?

 

[KSoD]

Okay have you tried to use something like this...

Pandora File Recovery - Find and recover deleted files of any type - free.

It is free. Maybe the partition was lost? Maybe try to use Partition Magic to see if that finds anything?!?

I would try to use the Pandora Recovery first. See if that finds anything on the drive.

 

[protonfusion]

yah... im running padora right now and its comming up with some jpg and old image files but.....i dont understand how this happened.. i was very careful which drive i reformatted and installed under... i dont see how the whole drive is just gone... i had so much crucial info on it /....

 

[KSoD]

IT could jsut be that when Windows XP isntalled it didnt isntall the drivers right. Then when it updated the drivers on first boot the drive was recognized as empty.

Honestly i dont know exactly how or why it happens. But this isnt the first time i have heard of Windows install that has lost drive data.

Also might want to check out the life of the drive. If it makes any funny noises or is really hot you might want to check it out. It could be getting close to failing on you.