Main HD 15G became 5G with no OS

Avast Free Antivirus / Premium Security
1

Hi,

First a brief about my failed PC (OS & programs newly updated):

  1. Windows XP Pro, one account only,
  2. Protection: ‘Avast4! Pro’ + ‘Spybot-Search&Destroy 1.3’ + ‘SpywareBlaster 3.4’.

Yesterday a guest worked on that computer then turned it off.
Today, I turned it on but the BIOS couldn’t boot the HD as if the OS in no more on it.

I checked the affected HD (size 15G) using USB HD reader on another PC. It was seen as a 5G HD only with no sign of all the OS (and related) files.

I asked the guest about it. He has no idea on how that happened!
I wonder if it is possible to run a sort of cleaning program to restore the HD to its normal state without the need to erase and format it.

I couldn’t search on the internet about that problem since I have no clue about the keyword(s) that might describe it.

Thanks in advance for any help or suggestions.

Kerim

2

Hi again,

More info, the HD had two partitions:
1- 10G NTFS for the OS (XP Pro SP2) and basic programs,
2- 5G FAT32 for files.

It seems that mainly the partition data of the 10G NTFS was corrupted since a utility (brought by a techinician) was able to see its files.

3

Kerim, can’t you boot?
If you overinstall XP, will you be able to boot?
Overinstallation can solve the problem and you won’t lose your programs, settings, data, files, etc.
Just choose ‘Repair’ installation of Windows and install ‘over’ the old installation.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314058
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/repair_xp.htm

4

Hi Tech.

I’ll follow your advice. Thank you for the links.

Kerim

5

Don’t let to post the results and feel free to ask for further help 8)