I have a dell dimension 8200 running windows XP. I have two hard drives, C & G. C contains all system files, while G is just a storage drive. When starting the computer today, I got the "corrupt master file table" message for the G drive. Everything seems normal, however, I cannot read anything from the G drive. Not being much of a computer person, I ask the following:

Question 1: Am I SOL, or is there a way to recover the data on the hard drive?

Question 2: Assuming there is a way to recover the data, how do I go about doing it, or do I need to take it to a professional?

Thanks in advance for any help.

There is still the way back, I had also encountered such a problem. But I regret is that I was other people to help me. As for the first two problems I would suggest that you bring it to a professional.

The MFT is a "sticky" issue;

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=...e+table+&meta=

I've been reading some of these "articles", and one looked promising, however the links provided no longer work. Still researching....

Here's a Fred Langa article on the MFT; (Item #4)
http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2006/2006-10-09.htm#4

In this Langa article, (Item #7) he suggests some measures to take;
http://windowssecrets.com/comp/langalist/060302

However, there are no guarantees.