Reply #20: But for the price of getting it fixed the poster could buy a brand new drive that has more space.

[Occulus]

Or, the poster could use the process I described in this thread in the Open Source forum here at DU to get to the drive using Ubuntu, format it there (because Windows viruses can't infect a linux filesystem ;) ), and POOF, good as new. The advantage to doing it that way is that, once the Ubuntu system is set up on a USB stick, it's configured for that PC's hardware and no other, meaning it won't work properly (or maybe even at all) if someone grabs it and tries it on their own PC.

Never, ever pay for support if you don't need to. The price for getting the drive cleaned will cover at least the price of a new drive, and probably a larger one at that (depending on whether the poster's computer has SATA capability or not). In any case, an answer to the problem is at the link above; it is a somewhat involved process (especially for someone who doesn't really know what they're doing), and the poster will more likely than not want his/her local guru computer geek friend to stop by and set it up, but it's beats the snot out of paying for something that, honestly, can be done in an hour or two at home.