Omg Hellppp! Hd Error

I had a prob with my powerstrip that my computer was luged into and the power was cut on then of a couple times really quick. Now my storage drive isnt accessible through windows or dos. I keep gettin a error that says drive isnt formatted do i want to format now. It has almost 80gb of my daughters pictures for the last 3 years. Audio tracks that i composed, backups and documention of my website etc. These things are irreplaceable what should i do? I cant afford to buy another drive either. Im so screwed.

any chance of trying it on another PC?

If you still get problems then i would say yes. something has gone wrong.

You could try some of these data recovery programs.

No other comp beside a laptop. I am aftraid to try one of them programs 1.beuse i dont want to mess it up (will try just afraid) and 2. from what ive noticed, most of them rewuire you to back it up on another drive...un fortunealtely i dont have another that size.

Questions.

1) is this drive a internal second drive or external

2) what Operating system are you using?

internal and xp

Not surprising your shutdowns corrupted the disk.

What happens is the file allocation tables, which keep track of where everything is, is abruptly stopped in its updating the fat tables. This can be minor or major as in your case.

First step is get out your XP cd. Set your bios to boot the cdrom first [boot order is usually a:, 1st drive, cdrom]. Boot your computer and put in the XP cd. This will start the install. Choose repair. Once in repair use the command line utilities fixboot and fixmbr. This should get you booting again assuming no physical damage to the drive.

Once you get booted go to a cmd prompt and type chkdsk /f. It will tell you that it can't lock the drive and do you want to run chkdsk after a reboot. Say yes and reboot. This will check and correct any file allocation problems.

CDRW's are cheap these days. Give serious consideration to buying one and backing up your into to cds.

My bad. You must mean 2nd disk when you say storage disk. Does the bios still list the drive? If so data recovery software is your ONLY choice. You have no other door to go thru.

ok i will try that.....it didnt have a windows install though....it was purely a storage drive will that matter? thx for your help