Program Files (x86) showing as empty

Here we are

D: has around 40G on it.
You say you cant see anything on Explorer.
What kind of files are on D: (data, programs)?

Mostly programs and some pics and documents. I've found a program called 'Drive Drill' which has located some of the files.
I'll try to access the drive again tomorrow as I think if it is showing then it must still be there.

Started the PC this morning and was okay, did not have time to check the D drive as I was going out to an appointment. This evening my wife went to use the PC and it would not start, eventualy it started to do a check on the C drive, at the moment (23:36 UK time) it is up to 4 percent and saying that files are unreadable. Would it be possible to use the windows 7 disc to do a repair do you think or is it shot?

Not tried that yet, But when I got up this morning the PC was working. D drive still showing that it is not accessible. What I might do is put a new smallish drive for the OS and partition the old drive into one and try it as D and see what happens. Or just get a 1Tb drive for D as they are cheap enough.

warmbells said:

Started the PC this morning and was okay, did not have time to check the D drive as I was going out to an appointment. This evening my wife went to use the PC and it would not start, eventualy it started to do a check on the C drive, at the moment (23:36 UK time) it is up to 4 percent and saying that files are unreadable. Would it be possible to use the windows 7 disc to do a repair do you think or is it shot?

I would say that your disk 1 is dying.
As C: and D: partitions are on same disk, if you can boot save all your data on the other disk (E:).

Don't buy a HDD. Buy a small (128 or 256G) SSD. Use the SSD for Windows and programs and the HDD for data. You will have the speed of a SSD and the space of a HDD at low cost.

Thanks for the replies,
I can boot and am leaving the PC on all the time and transfering everything I can to the spare drive. The PC has a GA-Z77-DS3H motherboard which has two slots for mSATA boards, my son has a 240Gb board he has not used and said he will let me have it. Will I have to go into the BIOS and change the boot configuration?

The main advantage of a SSD over a HDD is speed.
The mSATA should be used for Windows and programs and the HDD for data.
With Macrium Software | Macrium Reflect Free generate a disk image of disk 1. Save the image on disk 0 (E: ).
Partially restore the image on the mSATA disk. The 100M EFI partition first then the C: partition (You will have to let it shrink C: on the mSATA). Don't restore the D: as there is no space on the mSATA for it.