Got a problem with a hard disk

[Guv]

One of my hard drives, a WD 250gb, 2-3 years old has decided not to work properly.
It was working fine 24 hours ago, the computer hasn't been turned off but now I can't access it.

'My computer' takes a while to load and then shows the hard drive as having 100% free space (should be about 20% free). When I try and access the drive it says I must format it first...

In disk management it's not showing any file system.


Any ideas on how I can fix the problem without formatting?

thanks

 

[Guv]

If you need to recover data from the drive, first give yourself a stiff lecture about the importance of backups and then head to www.handyrecovery.com.

If you have recovered the data, or did not need to, head to www.westerndigital.com and see if your drive is in warrantee or if there is a diagnostic program available for it. If it passes the diagnostics, treat it as a new disk, use Disk Management to laydown and format a partition on it and then copy the files back.

Thanks for your reply.

I've tried that program but it won't read the hard disk. I've also tried various other program trials, they are all say there's an error, some will allow me to view the folder on the hard drive but I can't copy anything from it.

I tried rebuilding the partition which apparently was done sucessfuly but I still couldn't access the drive.

Anyone know of other recovery programs? I'm willing to buy one if it's good and going to work


thanks