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!Try getting a ubuntu live cd and see if it'll detect your drive and mount it.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.Edit for lack of rational content.

Deep you have been warned.

patio.