HDD raw

arsenic · Rated PG Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 5

hii ,
samsung 40gb hdd (2 partition - H & I )
operating system on another 80gb HDD.
P4 - 3.0 , intel mobo 915gav,
win xp pro (sp1)

first partition 'H' which is 10gb partition 'I' which is approx 28gb . both partition are fat32.
upon restart I can only see partition H , properties say it's a RAW format with 0kb .I tried win xp recovery console to fix mbr and fix boot as i suspect the partition table got corrupt or erased,but that did not help. it gave me a msg 'one or more unrecoverable error on disk'.
but when I check disk management, it shows 'H' as active and 'I' as free space . where as the data was 'ONLY' on I drive.
if I click the drive , it asks me to format drive.

thanks !!! Smile

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 13:37:59 Post Subject:

Could you take a screen shot of what Disk Managment shows and post it.

Also, why Fat32?? NTFS is a lot better, faster, and more secure.

arsenic · Rated PG Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 5

here is a screenshot for disk manager

and this is when I try to access the drive.

thanks for any help !!

arsenic · Rated PG Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 5

when I right click properties, it comes up as RAW drive.

well, I agree about NTFS being more reliable than FAT . but didnt have much knowledge about it at the time I formated this drive.(n00b).. Smile

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 15:23:18 Post Subject:

If you right click on the drive from Disk Manager, are you presented an option to "import" the drive?

arsenic · Rated PG Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 5

there seems to be no such option on right click on any drive. Is there any way I can rebuild partition table (signature). there seems to be no signature on the drive.
thank you for replies.
cheers !!!

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 17:55:38 Post Subject:

Did you happen to use any kind of tool to format it? Like was this drive used on a system that didn't support large drives? Did you use something like partion magic on it?

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 18:04:50 Post Subject:

Did some research... it really looks like the data is gone, or your going to have to get some data recovery software.

BeerCheeze · Posted: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 18:08:25 Post Subject:

More research.... Grin

Take a look at this: http://support.microsoft.com/Default.aspx?kbid=297800

arsenic · Rated PG Joined: 18 Mar 2005 Posts: 5

thanks Dr. EvilCheeze for responding ,
since I have data on this funny HDD partition ,I would use data recovery software as last resort. but I was just wondering if there is a work around .
After digging I came across a shareware which claims to fix this issue. 'partition table doctor'. now the crack. Wink

..
would appreciate if anyone can point me to the right direction.
thanx a lot !!!