System366

Hio all!

I have a External Maxtor HDD 400GB's in size. i had it in 2 partitions, one partition approx 350GB and other 50GB the 350 Partition was NTFS Format for my windows XP Laptop and the 50 Partition was in ext2 Format for my Linux based desktop computer.

I dont use my Desktop PC anymore so wanted the whole drive in NTFS format so i downloaded PartitionMagic 8.0 so i could erase the ext2 Partition and Expand the NTFS partition to take up the whole drive, it took about 9-10 hours to format then just said "An Error as Occured" No details wer shown all i could do was click "Ok"

I Then decided to use gParted from a live CD, when i booted it up and opened gParted it said that the NTFS partition had 2 bad sectors reported and would have to be fixed in windows using chkdisk utility before being able to edit it with gParted.

I rebooted into windows and when i went to the drive it shows no details. there is no file format the disk space free is 0 used 0 an total 0. (For both partitions) if i try to enter the drive an error pops up saying

-My Computer-

X:\ Is not accessible

The File or Directory is Corrupt or Unreadable.

*Ok*

When i try to do a checkdisk it simply closes when i click ok after selecting the scanning options. and the drive doesnt show up at all in defragmentor.

thre is about 250gbs of data on the NTFS partition. I would have backed up the data 1st but i dont have another HDD (Well my laptops is only 80GB and my PC's is only 30GB)

Is there anyway i can fix the drive iether through Windows / Linux without having to recover the Data to another drive first?

Or if i reformat the whole HDD into an NTFS partition can i scan it with a recovery programme and have it recover the files from before the format straight onto the same drive it is recovering from?

Thanks in Advance

SysteOveride366

P.s. I need something that is automated, where i dont have to tell it all the diff file types to search for as im guessing it will take several hours to recover all the data so i will have to leave it overnight. The lost Data is very important, or atleast most of it is. its mainly College work but would like my personal Data back aswell altho they arnt realy as important :)