Hard drive doesn't show C drive, but shows the other partition

[Spatzi]

My computer failed to boot a few weeks ago. I took out the C drive and put it in an external drive case on my other computer in order to retrieve outlook emails, bookmarks, etc. The drive is 250 gigs. It only shows an 'N' drive, 130 gigs worth of data, which must have been a partition. The C drive isn't there. Is it corrupted? Will be I be able to retrieve anything from the C drive?  If the drive is corrupted, why does one partition show up and not the other?

[Kando]

I had a similar situation. I was able to get data off the drive using a Ubuntu live cd. Burn the iso to cd, put the drive back in the computer and boot to the cd. If you can see the drive in Places then you should be able to get your data off.

Please note the "if" and "should".

Good luck.

[Geek-9pm]

Putting a LARGE  drive into a USB enclosure does not always work the way you think it should. Use a better USB adapter. One that is compatible with your  mother board.

[Spatzi]

I used partition recovery software. It found the missing partition and after searching for almost 3 hours, it seems to have found mostly everything, and I'm now burning files to dvd. Whew!

By the way, where would outlook store all my emails and address book? It's a dbx file, right? I need to find it.

[Geek-9pm]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/270670

[dahlarbear]

At the risk of creating a "testimonial", may I ask which partition recovery software you used?  Is it a "free", "free for personal use only", or "commerical" product?

After backing up your data, will you attempt to recover the partition by rewriting its Partition Boot Record (PBR) or whatever name you wish to call it (Volume Boot Record)?