Hard drive partition unreadable in Windows but works in Linux...HELP!

[heat23]

I have Dell M1530 laptop that has a Samsung 250 GB SATA hard drive with Windows 7 running on it. All of a sudden, I cannot boot into Windows because it cannot find the hard drive. I am able to see the windows boot menu (safe mode, normally, etc) but none of the options work. I tried using the recovery option but it does not work since again, it cannot find the hard disk.

So I bought a SATA->USB external enclosure in hopes that I will be able to recover the data from my hard drive.. So I connected it to a different Windows XP system and a Windows 7 system and in both cases, I get 2 new drive letters to show up in Windows Explorer. One is my main partition that has all my data, and the other one is labeled as "Recovery". I can browse the files just fine in the recovery partition but when I try to do it for the main one, windows stops responded.

So I then hooked up this same hard drive to a Ubuntu Linux system and I have NO problems reading the data from the main partition! That gives me some hope! But what I want to do is, diagnose/fix whatever problem the hard drive has and keep the data what is on there. How can I do this?

Thanks!

 

[KGB]

First thing:
Connected to the Linux box, copy off as much stuff as you can before the HD totally fails.

Second:
Put the HD back in the Dell and run the Dell diagnostics (hit 'F12' at the BIOS screen and select the diagnostics option).

Third:
If the Dell stuff runs okay, DL and boot from a Samsung HD diagnostics disk.


IF all of this stuff comes up clean, the FAT table on the HD got hosed and you need to reload.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Tried to repair the MBR? Warning it will wipe out your lili/grub to boot to linux.

 

[Devilpapaya]

Tried to repair the MBR? Warning it will wipe out your lili/grub to boot to linux.

This really doesn't sound like a problem with the master boot record.
1) It gets to the windows safemode,etc boot menu
2) Filesystem is unreadable as external attached in a windows environment (which doesn't rely on the MBR)

Sounds more like a failing HDD if it just happened out of the blue. As KGBman said, back up as much as you can from the HDD before running diagnostics. If the HDD is about to fail the diagnostics *could* kill it completely.

Most of KGB's statement I agree with (besides it's the Master File Table under NTFS not the File Allocation Table (FAT) of FAT and FAT32 file systems ;P ) One more thing you can try, if the HDD diagnostic scans come up clean is some error correction, could help recover more lost files on the HDD or repair it enough to boot (though a reinstall may still be a good idea)

My favorite program for HDD data recovery is Spinrite, but that costs a pretty considerable amount, and is probably not worth it if you can:
A) backup most of the stuff before data correction
B) don't really care about what files you missed

Spinrite also has a decent HDD diagnostic scan.

Free recovery programs include
A) Recuva (spl?) a decent un-delete type program. Works ok but probably won't restore boot functionality.
B) Windows checkdisk : Can be run from a windows install CD (select "repair my computer" rather than "install now") Does an okay job at recovering corrupt sectors... most of the time.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

This really doesn't sound like a problem with the master boot record.
1) It gets to the windows safemode,etc boot menu
2) Filesystem is unreadable as external attached in a windows environment (which doesn't rely on the MBR)

Sounds more like a failing HDD if it just happened out of the blue. As KGBman said, back up as much as you can from the HDD before running diagnostics. If the HDD is about to fail the diagnostics *could* kill it completely.

Most of KGB's statement I agree with (besides it's the Master File Table under NTFS not the File Allocation Table (FAT) of FAT and FAT32 file systems ;P ) One more thing you can try, if the HDD diagnostic scans come up clean is some error correction, could help recover more lost files on the HDD or repair it enough to boot (though a reinstall may still be a good idea)

My favorite program for HDD data recovery is Spinrite, but that costs a pretty considerable amount, and is probably not worth it if you can:
A) backup most of the stuff before data correction
B) don't really care about what files you missed

Spinrite also has a decent HDD diagnostic scan.

Free recovery programs include
A) Recuva (spl?) a decent un-delete type program. Works ok but probably won't restore boot functionality.
B) Windows checkdisk : Can be run from a windows install CD (select "repair my computer" rather than "install now") Does an okay job at recovering corrupt sectors... most of the time.

Ive seen this type of behavior with bad MBR, otherwise wouldnt have posted it...