Here are the problems:
— Hard disk (160 GB) has two partitions; while running, the computer started giving me error messages about system files being corrupted, however several programs in use still worked fine.
— After rebooting the computer, the hard disk is acting as if it had the operating system partition wiped clean, or had been never formatted. The second partition and all data located there is visible and ok. I installed the problem hard drive as a slave, together with a functioning hard drive set as master. The two partitions on the problem hard drive are visible, but the system partition is seen as being unformatted; the data on the second partition is fully accessible.
— Could it be that the hard drive has some sort of boot-sector virus? I run a Symantech antivirus check but nothing was found. Is there any way to access the data on the bad partition (if it’s still there…)? My goal is to save/get as much data out as possible and then reformat the hard drive and start from scratch….. 🙁
Thanks a lot for any help!