NTFS drive wont mount - "unknown filesystem"?

[Steve]

On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:45:13 -0000, David McNally <david3333333 at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> Hi Karl.
>
> Thanks for getting back so quick, but I have a little problem with
> that. The partition on the broken hard drive is bigger than my
> internal hard drive, or any hard drive that i own. That might not work
> so well. Also, I'm not too good with opening hard drives or computers.
> I'm good at fixing software, but I'm no use for fixing broken
> hardware.
>
> However, I noticed in GParted that it allows me to "Format as NTFS". I
> didn't actually do it, but I was wondering what would happen if I did.
> Does format strictly mean that it will erase everything on the hard
> drive, or will it just make the hard drive into an NTFS partition? If
> it just makes it into an NTFS partition, then I could probably try
> that, right?
>
If you want the data back I wouldn’t do that as it will basically give you  
a clean partition.
Could you reinstall windows and see if it works or try it on a windows  
machine.

-- 
Steve