Data recovery

Was the partition NTFS or FAT? This is important.

I used a program called GetDataBack (available in both flavors) back when my new maxtor died 10 months ago.

Note that if the hard drive is already dead and not just failing, it's too late. However, if it is failing, you have hope, but some stuff wont be recoverable, and of course you'll need a spare hard drive with enough free space to recover the data to.

God speed.

Like UE said if the HD is dead (ie it refuses to boot and makes weird clicking noises) then all the data is lost. This happened to me back when I had an 8gig HD, it was almost full and I lost all my old map files and textures etc.

The lesson to learn here is ALWAYS backup your data, no matter how small it is. For instance I backup my mod files onto a re-writable CD everyday and keep adding onto that whenever I have new data to add or write over old data. I suggest you do this with everything that you've done in future, afterall these are your own workings and the last thing you want is to lose a good year's + worth of hard-work.

/me pets strat~

well if it just won't boot it could be just the boot sector is corrupted. have him install an OS on a second drive and boot from that, and try to mount the first drive as a slave to the new one and do some data recovery.

I've had two drives crash or burn up on me in the past. after that i built my current system with a mirrored raid array. it's not a perfect solution but i figure it'll keep me out of hot water in maybe half the catastrophes i'll experience.

also, run the manufacturer's diagnosis tools. Maxtor's is powermax, I don't know the name for the other brands. It will tell you if the drive is actually dead or just failing.

Additionally, is that drive still hooked up to a comp that's being used (as in, there's another drive that has the OS on it)? If so, it's probably a good idea to disconnect the faulty drive until you attempt to recover data, otherwise you may be doing more damage to it every time you power it up when you're not using it.