Ok.. long-ish story... I download from a program called DC++ (Direct Connect) to a second 160 Gb Seagate hard drive. Recently, when exiting the program it hasnt been closing properly, and I have to open Task Manager and end the actual process to close all connections with the hubs and other DC++ users, my ping then returns to normal and I can play CoD. However, I had noticed that when doing this, I occasionally got drive and file errors when shutting down Windows, but these only flashed up and I never paid too much attention to them since I barely had time to read them! Although sometimes when restarting, the second hard drive was not available in My Computer, or stated it was 'inaccessible', however restarting the machine again always sorted this problem out... sometimes a restart involved an occasional chkdisk/chkdisk (whatever its called these days!) Ok, so, last week after an incident described above, the second HDD was not visible, so I restarted my machine again, rather confident that it sorts the problem out. It ran a chkdisk, and went through what seemed a more in depth check of the file system, doing something to some sectors (or something) and the ultimately deleting an episode of Smallville. Wasnt too impressed, but the episode wouldnt be difficult to re-download, so was again confident that the problem was solved. However, a few days later after another occurrence of the incident, and another 2 restarts with a chkdisk, the entire folder which I download to (aptly named 'DC++') was no longer a 'folder' as you and I know one, but instead had been converted to a 'file' (with no extension) and had the size of 0 bytes! Confused and frustrated, since there was about 10 Gbs of music and videos in this folder and I was unable to open this 'file', I pondered what I should do. Eventually, and stupidly, I did nothing! Instead my urge to watch the latest episode of 24 engulfed me, so I created a new folder on the second HDD to download to, leaving the DC++ 'file' as it was, and set about downloading again. That was 2 days ago. Now, after another incident occurrence last night when shutting down my computer, no chkdisks were initiated, I booted up this morning to find that I could not access my second HDD! So I restarted, hoping that would solve the problem, it restarted without a chkdisk, and I attempted to open my HDD but instead I received the message "F:/ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupt and unreadable". It now also has 0 bytes! Several restarts later, and I still have no access. An attempt to run a chkdisk through Windows fails miserably, the chkdisk box appears, clicking start makes it vanish, without checking anything! I have about 120 Gbs of files on this drive, which I dont want to lose!! Needless to say, I have uninstalled Direct Connect, and if/when this problem is sorted I will revert to an older version of the software that I know do not have this problem! But at the moment, I need to recover my files on my HDD!!! And to top it all off, I still havent seen the latest 24!! Can anyone help me??

Good thing is - the data is still on the HDD. 1) Make the HDD detectable(if the OS cannot do it, downloaded the drivers from manufacturer's site - be careful though, since some drivers tend to format the drive as well for usage - and you dont want that) 2) Use some Data Recovery s/wares to get back the files. I cannot think anything more beyond this. But I'm sure there is something im missing. Trance Hub of the Web - http://foreveranuj.tripod.com

The drive is currently detectable, it appears in My Computer, and on the Disk Management tool says it is 'healthy' (=/) but also says it is 0 bytes. The problem is that it is not allowing any access to it, simply giving the message: "F:/ is not accessible. The directory is corrupt and unreadable". I will try some data recovery tools, do you have any recommendations to any (free!) ones? Thanks Dan. Asus P5GD2 Premium Intel 640 o/c @ 3.61 GHz Seasonic S12-600W PSU 1Gb 2x512 Geil PC4300 XFX GeForce 6800 GT 256MB Thermaltake Xaser V5000A Damier case

Dan, try File Scavenger.. a great data recovery software and well worth the 40 bucks. Ray