System Restore corrupted HDD...?

[KoRo]

Have you ever heard of System Restore causing another problem in the process? Well it seems to have happened to me today...
A few days ago, Windows (XP) was not booting up. I could boot into Linux just fine, so that's when I decided to run system restore to see if that would help. Sure enough, it did (after the second try; first restore point was still no good). What I found, though, was that my D: drive (a physically separate hard disk) is completely inaccessible, both in Windows AND Linux. The error is "The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable."

I ran chkdsk to no avail (it stated "Unable to determine the volume version and date. CHKDSK aborted." No malware or viruses have been detected on my computer (ran scans for those too), so I don't know what's going on. Disk Management sees the drive as Healthy and 100% free (definitely not true). Disk Defrag won't work, nor will Error-Checking.

Any ideas? =\

[Lidge Farkley]

Yes.
Bart PE:  http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
There are many tools you can run from Bart PE once it loads up your system which may not always work while in windows.  I can't remember which, but one of the tools can solve this very issue you are having.

I don't know all the other useful details because I have not treated such an issue since I quit my computer repair job 2.5 years a go; I don't remember all that I could.

[KoRo]

I can boot up into windows just fine. It's my secondary drive that has malfunctioned.

I've run multiple scans telling me that the hard drive is in good health. The files are all there, I just can't get to them. It's gotta be some sort of driver or controller problem. Is there a way to fix those sort of things?


*Edit*
Check that. I think what I'm looking for is a partition recovery program (free) that will recover the entire disk without changing the file structure. Any ideas?

[Xenos]

Try http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

I've never used it before though.

From the page:

It was primarily designed to help recover lost partitions and/or make non-booting disks bootable again when these symptoms are caused by faulty software, certain types of viruses or human error (such as accidentally deleting a Partition Table). Partition table recovery using TestDisk is really easy.

Let us know if it works.

[KoRo]

Didn't work Though everyone keeps mentioning that TestDisk can repair the Master File Table (which I believe is the problem, since I've tried to fix everything else BUT that), but I haven't found the option for that. Secondly, would a corrupt MFT give me a seemingly corrupt HDD?


*Edit*
Hmm...Now the error has changed (something I did...not sure what, though). It says "The Parameter is Incorrect", yet I can still use various 3rd party programs to view and recover the files on the drive. Now what?

[Lidge Farkley]

Recover your files.  Get a new drive.

[KoRo]

Recovered all my data. I think the External f'ing up was just a fluke (bad timing, combined with me getting impatient). Everything's cool now. Thanks for all your guys' help.

[Lidge Farkley]

Well I'm glad you got everything recovered. :-)