Please Help

[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.