I would just format the disk and either restore your last image or install Windows clean. Then restore your documents from backup. At some point, I'd check the drive's SMART status.
Drives sometimes go unformatted like that. Hard to say why; presumably one important byte value might shift due to cosmic rays or something. On Sun, Dec 27, 2009 at 9:21 PM, rocky lee <[email protected]> wrote: > The patient: > P4 Gateway. > Windows XP. > 500GB hard drive. > > On boot, the computer cannot locate the start up volume. > When the I ran the Windows XP Installer disk, it sees > the physical hard drive, but not the previously installed > system. It sees an un-partitioned space on the physical drive. > > I am guessing that something how gone awry with the file system, either > the master boot record, or the database of the file system. > > At this point, i can clone the disk and work with a copy and pull of some > of the photo files, but is there more i can do with disk utility software > to restore the files and the file structure that was there, or am i at the > point where i need to salvage what files i can and start with a reformat and > a clean install of windows xp? > > The hard drive is less than a year old and physically seems sound. > Would/could this condition be caused by a power surge, virus, or other event? ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
