oh, yeah....i never changed the default.... that makes sense....

does that mean it sees the drive, but not the drive name?

Which is why good diagnostic procedure says fix nothing. First collect all facts. That is what diagnostic are for. And that was the caution I strongly posted in an earliest post.

Fixmbr should not destroy any partition. Fact that the partition was harmed implies other problems exist. Hopefully Spinrite will identify what that problem is without trashing temporarily lost data.

Why do we fix things? #1 is always to learn. I am sure this has been a wonderful (and roller coaster) learning experience. But that is the #1 reason for fixing things - to learn what they mean in CSI by 'follow the evidence'.

If you do get it up, then go to the system (event) logs to discover any problem that Windows has seen long ago – and worked around. That is what those system logs are for. To record temporary problems yesterday so that you can fix them today – long before they become major failures tomorrow.

TestDisk
 

LJ,

I need for you to run TestDisk again.

Select No Log, then select your drive (the 320GB one), and select Proceed.

Select Intel/PC Partition and hit enter.

Select Analyse.

Select Quick Search.

When asked if TestDisk should search for a partition created under vista, select Y.

Post what you find.

Thanks

I'm at work, computer is at home.

should I interrupt spinrite?

Let it finish. Then first do what mbpark has recommended.

no offense, but I'd like to hear that answer from mbpark.

It's not there. Only drive X - 725MB

sorry.... i had accidentally left the old (v3.22) boot disc out, and hid the new one under a sweatshirt.

the new one (v 3.50) sees the drive.....

http://images2e.snapfish.com/2323232...3C%3B345nu0mrj

oh.....spinrite had apparently frozen at 5%..... so we shut it down.

OK Jim,

Hit enter, and then write the partition table to disk.

This is from: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

OMG - I hope my computer never breaks - I've been following all this and its way over my head. I need to back up a zillion images and stuff somehow. I think its time for me to learn how to burn a disk.

That's a good reminder classic.

I don't know anyone who is great about backing up their computer. But if you've got a decent DVD drive, it's not that hard and doesn't take that long.

Remember that you don't need to save the entire contents of the hard drive. You can always reinstall the programs from the original disks. You only need to save the files that you created or downloaded (and can't just download again). Normally these will be documents of some sort:

Pictures
Text documents
Emails (if you download your emails)
etc.

I never thought about e-mails. I only back up pictures. And I do it religiously in a couple different ways.

I've got an external hard drive. How would I do a back-up of e-mail stuff to a folder on the external hard drive? Where would I find those data files? I have Thunderbird, if that means anything

This page says

C:\Documents and Settings\[Your user name]\Application Data\Thunderbird\Profiles\[ID].default\Mail\Local Folders

Better option: switch to Gmail and let Google manage it from now on.