Fat32 Partition Not Mounting?

Ive had this external hard drive for about a year with half of it on a mac partition and the other half on a pc partition. recently, the pc partition (fat32) stopped mounting. my mac computer can pull up the partitions in disk utility and see both, but the pc partition isnt mountable. i tried putting up the partitions in pc xp and it just labels them as unformatted. i have a lot of valuable data in that partition that i'd like the get to if anyone could help me out. thanks!

disk utility tells me this:

Verify and Repair disk “SCOTTYD USB”
** /dev/disk1s2
** Phase 1 - Read FAT
Unable to read FAT (Input/output error)
Error: The underlying task reported failure on exit


1 non HFS volume checked
1 volume could not be repaired because of an error

and then first aid fails when verifying and try to fix the problem.

Do you have a PC that you can attach the drive to? If you do, attach the drive and run "chkdsk /f" from a command prompt. If the drive can be repaired that way, you should be able to get at your files, otherwise you may have to use recovery software.

Data Rescue 3

yes i have a pc. how do i run that on a usb disk from command prompt??

Assuming the USB disk is drive E (your internal disk is C and the optical drive likely is D):

From RUN type in "cmd.exe" without the quotes. That should bring up a DOS like command prompt. From the prompt type in "chkdsk /f E:" without the quotes. Follow directions.

it tries to run but then errors out saying to make sure all of the proper drivers are loaded and that the drive isnt damaged or corrupt. i think the original problem that started this may have been unplugging the drive from a computer without "ejecting" first.

It sounds like either the partition table of the drive or boot sector was damaged when it was ejected improperly.

About the only option left is to try data recovery software. Data Rescue 3 can recover data from FAT-32 and HFS. You can give that a try by downloading their trial copy first. If it works, buy a license. ($99)

Any way to rebuild the partition table?