wierd hdd problem

[matt]

I have two hard drives, one is split nfts for XP and ext for linux, the other hard drive is fat32 which i use to share between the two OS's.

After my last reboot i got the "disk needs to be checked for consistency" (fat32 drive) message, which i normally skip... however i was too late getting to my keyboard to abort it and it started before i hit a key.

during the disk check there was some problem and a prompt to do something, but because i hit a key after the check started, it automatically agreed to the prompt and continued.

now when i look at the fat32 drive, the disk usage shows correctly but all of the files and folders are gone except for about 20 random files.  i have tried booting into linux but it now gets stuck at the fdsk check and i can't seem to ctrl-c or abort it.

Any ideas on how to get access to all of these files (doc xls pdf mp3 avi jpeg etc...)?

thanks!

[linuxlover]

Try getting a ubuntu live cd and see if it'll detect your drive and mount it.

[matt]

i loaded up a knoppix cd, and it found and mounted the drive with no problem, but it only showed the same 20 or so files I can see on windows.

I also tried restoring windows to a previous date, but that didn't do anything either. 

I'm really stumped on this one because i'm not exactly sure what happened.  It is also weird that is just a collection of random files that were on the drive are showing up and that it shows the correct disk usage.

[deep]

Edit for lack of rational content.

Deep you have been warned.

patio.