[RESOLVED] IDE HDD not accessible

I built a PC a little over 2 years ago, nothing fancy.
I installed a 320g HDD formatted with 4 partitions.
This is not my primary PC, so I don't use it too often.
I run AVG to protect it. About a week ago, I contracted "Anti-Virus Live" which I thought was more of a pain than damaging. I ran Super-AntiSpyware, AVG, and followed some steps to remove it. Seemed like it was back to normal and running well again. (I don't know if it's related or not)
About 2 days ago, it blue screend and would not restart.
It would fail immediately after the Post.
I booted to the XP Install CD, thinking I could repair XP, but it informed me that the drive was not formated.
I set the HDD to Slave and installed it in another PC. It recognized the whole HDD (no partitions) and said that it was unformatted.
I ran Active@ Partition Recovery (I bought & registered a couple years ago). I ran a Scan and it found the drive, partitions, and I can see every file.

OK, how do I fix it? I tried recreating the mbr, but no improvement.

Which version of Windows is that PC using?

Both PCs are running XP Home with the latest patches.

Any idea about what's wrong? The data still appears to be there and the HDD is still accessable and the partitions are still there, viewing with Active @Partition, but it seems like the index or table or something is corrupted. The HDD is still physically ok and the data is still intact, just not directly accessable.

Viewing the "drive" via My Computer, only show 1 drive letter (there are acutally 4 partitions) and when I click on it, I get a message "The disk drive G is not formatted. Do you want to format now?"

How do I reformat the drive / partitions without losing the data? I can see the files / folders via the utilities I mentioned earlier.

Can't Active@ repair the partition table? I've never used it myself, though I've heard good things about it, but I thought it was supposed to be able to.

If you can't do that, boot up with the WinXP CD in the drive, and go to the Recovery Console. At the command prompt, type "Fixboot", then type "Fixmbr", then "Bootcfg /rebuild" all without the quotes.

Let me take a look at Active again. I don't remember a partition repair option, but maybe i overlooked it.

If not, I'll try the Recovery Console.

Thanks!

"Fixboot" - successful
"Fixmbr" - successful
"Bootcfg /rebuild" - not successful, tried again, still not succesful

tried rebooting the HDD: Invalid Partition Table
can't reboot XP CD now either, it hangs when inspecting the hardrive.

Run the disk diagnostic for your brand of disk drive (if you don't know what make it is run Seatools). Download UBCD and burn it to CD, it has all the disk testing utilities on it plus many more useful tools besides, then just boot with the disc in the drive and select the utility that you want.

Ultimate Boot CD

Ran SeaGate Tools from my UBCD.
I ran the Short and Long tests, both finished successfully with no errors.

If I try to boot directly, I get an error "Invalid Partition Table".
I also got a BSOD message Driver_IRQL_Not_Less_or_Equal.

I googled it, but couldn't find a solution.

I think you need to do an over-the-top re-install of Windows XP here. Boot up with the XP CD in the drive and let Setup run. Go past the "C" and "R" repair options by pressing Enter just as if you're doing a clean install and you'll eventually get an option to "Repair an existing installation". That's the one you want. If it asks about formatting you've gone wrong, so start over.

You'll get to keep your existing apps & settings, but you need to re-install SP2, Windows Updates & any unsigned drivers afterwards. NOTE: Be aware that you'll lose any protection from Blaster / Sasser type worms. Don't go online without a firewall, whether the built in Windows one or 3rd party.

How to perform a re-install of WinXP

Repair XP

WinXP Non-destructive Total Rebuild

After trying numerous times to boot with the XP CD and Recover or otherwise re-install XP, I went back to another shot at the Activate software.

SUCCESS!!!!! After playing with Activate@ Partition Recovery a bit further (not very intuitive) I was able to recover the partitions and copy the data off completely. I'll back it up now. reformat / repartition the drive again, and run a HDD diagnostic (just to confirm the drive has not become corrupted).

Thanks guys!

You're very welcome, I'm glad you got your data back :)