Please Help

[JVC]

Hi all,i am hoping some of you can help me out of this problem.

I have 2 hard drives a 40 gig and a 120 gig,yesterday i had a nightmare and i had to reformat my 40 gig drive and re install XP on it.Before i re formatted i had partitioned my 120 gig drive into 5 smaller drives that contained my music,warez and data.

Now i have re installed XP when i goto my 120 gig drive it waont let me access it,just says need to be formatted and gives me the option of doing that.Obviously i dont want to do that and loose all my data.

My question is,how can i access my 120 gig drive or have i lost what i had on there now?

Thanks in advance. :)

[cwctv]

Lets make it clear you formatted your 40gig and then reinstalled Xp to it BUT left the 120 gig alone you didn't format that,you didn't re-partistion it before you did your 40.

[Kunal]

did you format al partitions before you formatted your 40gig? are all your partitions like this? did you check that they all worked before? what file system did you format them with? what program did you use to partition?

[JVC]

cwctv Posted on 7 December 2003 - 12:11
  Lets make it clear you formatted your 40gig and then reinstalled Xp to it BUT left the 120 gig alone you didn't format that,you didn't re-partistion it before you did your 40.


That is correct,did not touch my 120 gig drive.Just re formatted my 40 gig.


Kunal Posted on 7 December 2003 - 12:12
  did you format al partitions before you formatted your 40gig? are all your partitions like this? did you check that they all worked before? what file system did you format them with? what program did you use to partition? 


Did not format all partitions,just 40 gig drive.All partitions have been working fine since i installed them.The partitions were formatted to NTFS.Used partition magic to do them.


Please help anyone.cheers.

[cwctv]

Ok how many partitions (drives) do you have total.

[JVC]

I did have 5 partitions on my 120 gig drive(that i cannot access now) and none on my 40 gig.

[cwctv]

Yes but how many are showing in Windows explorer or your My computer thats 40 &120 gig total.

[JVC]

Originally posted by cwctv@7 December 2003 - 13:47
Yes but how many are showing in Windows explorer or your My computer thats 40 &120 gig total.
There is my 'c' drive that is 40 gig showing and my 'd' drive 120 gig is showing too.When i try and access my 120 gig it says that it needs to be formatted and my patitions are not there anymore.

I am puzzled. :blink:

[Kunal]

well if windows only shows one partition on your 120gig, thats all there is. sorry to tel you this but looks that youve lost your partitions and the data that was in them. a data recovary tool may work, but im not to sure

[JVC]

Originally posted by Kunal@7 December 2003 - 15:08
well if windows only shows one partition on your 120gig, thats all there is. sorry to tel you this but looks that youve lost your partitions and the data that was in them. a data recovary tool may work, but im not to sure
I had a bad feeling that might be the case. :(

Can you suggest any data recovery tools that might be worth trying?

[Virtualbody1234]

What file system is your new installation drive done with?

If it's fat32 then I'm not sure you would be able to see the NTFS partitions.

[JVC]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@7 December 2003 - 15:28
What file system is your new installation drive done with?

If it's fat32 then I'm not sure you would be able to see the NTFS partitions.
I am running XP so it is NTFS.My old patitions were NTFS too.

[Virtualbody1234]

Running XP doesn't mean it's NTFS. You may have mistakenly installed your Windows XP onto a fat32 partition.

[JVC]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@7 December 2003 - 15:40
Running XP doesn't mean it's NTFS. You may have mistakenly installed your Windows XP onto a fat32 partition.
My windows XP is installed on the 40 gig drive with no partitions.I only had patitions on the 120 gig.

By installing XP on the 40 gig i thought this would not affect my patitions on the 120 gig but it seems as though this is not the case..

[Virtualbody1234]

JVC. You're not paying attention to what I'm saying.

Your 40 gig drive has one partition using the whole drive.

If that 40 gig drive was made to be fat32 then I don't think you would be able to see those NTFS partitons.


Go to 'My Computer' right click on the C: drive icon and choose 'Properties'.

In the General tab beside 'File system', what does it say? NTFS or FAT32 ?

[JVC]

Originally posted by Virtualbody1234@7 December 2003 - 15:49
JVC. You're not paying attention to what I'm saying.

Your 40 gig drive has one partition using the whole drive.

If that 40 gig drive was made to be fat32 then I don't think you would be able to see those NTFS partitons.


Go to 'My Computer' right click on the C: drive icon and choose 'Properties'.

In the General tab beside 'File system', what does it say? NTFS or FAT32 ?
It says NTFs,as i said it was.

The 'd' drive file system is RAW. :(

[Virtualbody1234]

Well that blows my theory right out of the water. :(

Maybe looking at the drive with Partiton magic or the Windows Disk manager could shed some light onto the situation. I would be very careful not to change anything to the drives until I really understood what happened.

I can't think of anything else right now. I'll think about this and if I have any ideas I'll post back.

[cwctv]

Ok this is what I found after a quick search with google its abit long but hope it helps.

Question:-
ok bare with me i have 2 hard drives 1 40 gig with my operating system and games and programs my other hd is a 80 gig with my media, i refromated the 40 gig that has my operating system but before i did this i unplugged the power to my 80 gig to make sure of no data loss now that my 40 gig is formated and new and clean i plugged my 80 gig back in and now xp doesent see the data and evenworse
it sees it as a 31 gig raw format any ideas how to get my info of my 80 gig

Answer:-
Your drive before was probably a FAT partitioned drive, need to make it an NTFS or vise-versa. Under a FAT file system it will be unable to see the NTFS data. This is most likely your issue, what it wants to do is reformat in the NTFS filesystem.

Question:-
no the file system is raw. not fat or ntfs but it was ntfs before and nothing has changed thats why im confussed.

Someone Elses Answer:-
Your 80 gig hard drive had a boot overlay on it.
Something like ez-bios or Maxblaster.
If you used fdisk to set it active you may have destroyed the data.
Depending on the manufacturer, Western Digital has datalifeguard tools that will help you. Post again and I will explain a little more in detail how to recover your data if it is a western digital harddrive. Might be able to help if it is a maxtor also
If you make the 80 gig drive the master drive, then without a floppy or bootable cd, a menu should come up saying "Hit ctrl to boot from floppy, or spacebar to boot from floppy" Put a disk in after hitting the keys. If it is an ntfs partition a little trickier. If it is fat or fat32, you should be able to type c: then do a dir.
The raw format shows in xp because the bios did not translate correctly. A drive overlay was installed to help the bios use the full capacity of the drive. If you let the boot overlay load first, then follow the instructions, your data should still be there. If you have used fdisk and wrote the mbr to the disk, Western Digital tools will be able to restore a backup of the overlay from when it was installed. If you have formatted the drive forget that I posted this. Hope this helps.

[JVC]

Originally posted by cwctv@7 December 2003 - 17:40
Ok this is what I found after a quick search with google its abit long but hope it helps.

Question:-
ok bare with me i have 2 hard drives 1 40 gig with my operating system and games and programs my other hd is a 80 gig with my media, i refromated the 40 gig that has my operating system but before i did this i unplugged the power to my 80 gig to make sure of no data loss now that my 40 gig is formated and new and clean i plugged my 80 gig back in and now xp doesent see the data and evenworse
it sees it as a 31 gig raw format any ideas how to get my info of my 80 gig

Answer:-
Your drive before was probably a FAT partitioned drive, need to make it an NTFS or vise-versa. Under a FAT file system it will be unable to see the NTFS data. This is most likely your issue, what it wants to do is reformat in the NTFS filesystem.

Question:-
no the file system is raw. not fat or ntfs but it was ntfs before and nothing has changed thats why im confussed.

Someone Elses Answer:-
Your 80 gig hard drive had a boot overlay on it.
Something like ez-bios or Maxblaster.
If you used fdisk to set it active you may have destroyed the data.
Depending on the manufacturer, Western Digital has datalifeguard tools that will help you. Post again and I will explain a little more in detail how to recover your data if it is a western digital harddrive. Might be able to help if it is a maxtor also
If you make the 80 gig drive the master drive, then without a floppy or bootable cd, a menu should come up saying "Hit ctrl to boot from floppy, or spacebar to boot from floppy" Put a disk in after hitting the keys. If it is an ntfs partition a little trickier. If it is fat or fat32, you should be able to type c: then do a dir.
The raw format shows in xp because the bios did not translate correctly. A drive overlay was installed to help the bios use the full capacity of the drive. If you let the boot overlay load first, then follow the instructions, your data should still be there. If you have used fdisk and wrote the mbr to the disk, Western Digital tools will be able to restore a backup of the overlay from when it was installed. If you have formatted the drive forget that I posted this. Hope this helps.
Thanks for that,i found the article and have read it.

If that is the case and my 120 gig is fat then if i install VM Ware and partition 5 gig of my 20 gig drive,format this to FAT and install win98 would i then be able to access my 120 gig drive?

[cwctv]

What I would do would set the 120 to master disconnect the 40 at the power pull it out for now,get a bootdisk http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm if you want one put the floppy in and boot to dos type fdisk then see if the drive is there with all parts' if it is check fat while there.
Esc back to A:\ now type dir/w c: thats 1 gap space and see what comes up if the drive is there you should see your files.
If all is well then yes do what the other guy said to do get the program and if 20gig is enough for you just go ahead with it , but like he said read the thing as you go.

[JVC]

Originally posted by cwctv@7 December 2003 - 18:02
What I would do would set the 120 to master disconnect the 40 at the power pull it out for now,get a bootdisk http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm if you want one put the floppy in and boot to dos type fdisk then see if the drive is there with all parts' if it is check fat while there.
Esc back to A:\ now type dir/w c: thats 1 gap space and see what comes up if the drive is there you should see your files.
If all is well then yes do what the other guy said to do get the program and if 20gig is enough for you just go ahead with it , but like he said read the thing as you go.
I am not the most computer savvy person but i will give it a go.Thanks for all your help. :)

[cwctv]

Just copy and paste this whole or what you want from the topic then print it before you start, if the drive is still there with all files put the lot back together as was and start I would get the file you need while you have internet access.

Have a read about dos here if you want.
http://www.oldos.org/howto.php

[lynx]

Since plugging your 120GB drive back in, have you gone back to bios setup and redetected the drive? If not, it could well be set at the 32GB default.

Alternatively, and I think this is more likely, you need some software such as Maxblast (depends on hd manufacturer) to upgrade the bios to recognise drives of that size. This software has to be installed on the BOOT drive, in other words on your 40GB drive. If you've cleaned your 40GB drive you've probably removed this software.

If it doesn't recognise the size of your drive correctly it won't see the partitions on there.

[JVC]

Originally posted by lynx@7 December 2003 - 19:26
Since plugging your 120GB drive back in, have you gone back to bios setup and redetected the drive? If not, it could well be set at the 32GB default.

Alternatively, and I think this is more likely, you need some software such as Maxblast (depends on hd manufacturer) to upgrade the bios to recognise drives of that size. This software has to be installed on the BOOT drive, in other words on your 40GB drive. If you've cleaned your 40GB drive you've probably removed this software.

If it doesn't recognise the size of your drive correctly it won't see the partitions on there.
I never unplugged my 120 gig drive.

My hd is a Seagate 7200 8mb cache.

Just tried to enter BIOS on startup and for some reason i can't.It says hold delete but i do this and it just starts up normally.My motherboard is a ECS Elite Group K7VMM+...going to try and find out why i can't enter BIOS.

[Robert00000]

My friend had a similar problem before, since that time he has not touched partition magic again.

Partition magic is a very useful software (i use it all the time), but you need to know what you're doing. Certainly dont ever cross the cylinder boundry when making changes to partitions :o

I want to ask you some silly questions.

1) Did you have Boot Magic installed before you reformated?
2) How did you re-format, by using windows cd or partition magic or both?

[tesco]

i have the same motherboard and u cant access the bios after restarting or pressing reset.

you must shutdown teh computer then turn it on then press delete and go into teh bios.

[JVC]

Originally posted by Robert00000@8 December 2003 - 01:56
My friend had a similar problem before, since that time he has not touched partition magic again.

Partition magic is a very useful software (i use it all the time), but you need to know what you're doing. Certainly dont ever cross the cylinder boundry when making changes to partitions :o

I want to ask you some silly questions.

1) Did you have Boot Magic installed before you reformated?
2) How did you re-format, by using windows cd or partition magic or both?
I was reading on another forum that a few people have had bad experiences with Partition Magic,i am going to try Partition Expert instead.I did not have boot magic installed and used the XP cd to format my 40 gig.



ROSSCO_2003 Posted on 8 December 2003 - 02:28
i have the same motherboard and u cant access the bios after restarting or pressing reset.

you must shutdown teh computer then turn it on then press delete and go into teh bios.

Thanks for that tip i am very grateful to you.




I have examined the drive using a drive mapper and viewed it in hex and there is data on the 120 gig drive,it is in RAW format though.More research needed.

[Robert00000]

The obvious fact is you have deleted the references to the files and perhaps to the partitions on the 120gig drive, thats why you cannot access it.

This may be the result of bad partitioning, you should not use partitioning software casually, because it can cause problems with your system. I dont know why you had so many partitions, you could have put different types of files in to different folders instead.

When i first used partitioning software i had to re-partition and re-format my drive 5 to 6 times because of the mess i made of it. Now i have a better understanding of the software and dont change the partitions anymore unless i really need to.

Your only option now is to try and recover the data by using some data recovery software.

[clocker]

JVC,

DiskInvestigator 1.3 (http://www.windows-freeware.com/data_disk_partition_tools.asp) should solve your problem.
And it's free. ;)