Hi. A few weeks ago, my computer froze as I was entering a game. After about half an hour, I pressed the RESET button. When my computer had booted up, I tried accessing my E: drive(on which I keep my games, Misc. Stuff, etc), and I was met with the message "The disk in drive E is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?", and that's pretty much the problem. My first step was trying out a program called "TestDisk 5.8", and through this, I could see the contents of my E: drive. Everything seem/seemed to be there. That's how I came to the conclusion that the partition table is corrupted or damaged. I have tried: GetDataBack for NTFS and FAT(pretty sure it's a FAT drive, as sad as that sounds!), Partition Magic, and various other tools. The GetDataBack product would probably have worked if I had payed 69 Dollars... Partition Magic, well... actually, I'm not skilled at all with its usage, so I haven't touched anything there. I have quite a lot of data on the partition in question, and I'd hate to loose it. If any of you could help me, that would be great. I've heard about some various commands such as "fixboot", "fixmbr", etc... Once again, any help appriciated. PS: I did search before writing this, I found no cases quite like mine.

"GetDataBack product would probably have worked if I had payed 69 Dollars".....It the data worth more than that you better buy the program. I can vouch for both GetDataBack products (FAT & NTFS) and am sure whichever one is applicable to your partition table will help you retrieve your critical data. List of Lists.

TestDisk will show the partition table- post contents. (Partition ,start {3 columns},end {3 columns},number of sectors. Does TestDisk say you have a error in partition table? The problem could be a bad VBR (volume boot record). fixboot nor fixmbr will fix your problem, it will only replace the boot code not hdd partition parameters.

Well, the only error I've spotted is this one: "test_FAT : Boot sector doesn't have the endmark 0xAA55". Here's a picture of the error for a better overview: http://img152.echo.cx/img152/3057/bugmaybe3qj.jpg Bear in mind that I'm not experienced with neither TestDisk nor Partition Magic. All I've done with TestDisk is diagnosing, really.

I'm sure Testdisk "boot sector does not have endmark AA55" is talking about the VBR. IF it was the MBR or the extended partition table Windows should see the drive as not partitoned, where as if it is the VBR then Windows should see the hdd as partitoned but not formated. Need to know: 1)is this one hdd or 2 ?(1 hdd I think) 2)If 1 hdd just how was it partitoned ? 3)what is drive C: and D: ,if this drive is E: ? The jpg shows 1 pri NTFS {20g}, 1 extended {100g} with 1 logical volume as FAT 16{?} Note: the size of partitons are approxomate Do not like the last 4 entries on JPEG but suspect it is due to the missing endmark. fixboot E: could fix the problem but not to sure if it could not make things worse off, I use 98 not XP.

Well: I have two hard-drives. The new one was bought to replace the old one, but instead of taking the old one out, I chose to run the two hard-drives side by side. C: is a partition of my new hard-drive. It doesn't contain any vital system files or OS, and I rarely use it. D: is a partition of my old hard-drive. This contains my old hard-drive's OS, etc. H: Is a partition of my new hard-drive. This is where I keep vital system files, programs, the OS, etc. By the way, Partition Magic 8.0 shows the E: drive as "unformatted", if that's any help.

did some testing on my hdd. I rewrote the "boot sector endmark AA55" with 0000. Testdisk gave the same error and PM said unformated partition. With that said Win98 nor DOS had any problem with reading the partition. Try a 98 or ME boot floppy (www.bootdisk.com) and see if it has any problem. If you have a Norton cd do a find for "diskedit.exe" or you can download DE.exe , both are hdd editor programs. www.geocities.com/thestarman3/tool/de/PTS-DE.htm and read the how to use. With the program can rewrite the 55aa endmark.