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Bad Windows Reinstall

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poncherelli2

Senior member
I was just going through a reinstall minutes ago and it turned out to be very bad. I have a 250gb HD with all my media and files on a 75gb partition- D, and all my programs and OS on a 75gb partition- C. I booted from The install CD and wanted to reinstall the OS (WinXP pro) on the C: partition but it said there would be problems since there was already an installed OS on that drive. So i deleted that partition and reformatted the 75gb of space and reinstalled windows. When I got into windows my D: drive looked normal but all the the folders and files say not accessible when I try to open them and are listed as having zero files and zero size except for one random folder of downloads that appears fine. I shut the computer down and am now scared that I lost everything! What happened and is there anything I can do to get this stuff back. Please help- thank you.
 
The drive info says that there is 52.5gb used and ~110gb free which is exactly right. But when I go into the drive and select everything and check the properties, it says there is only 2.77gb of files, which is almost exactly the size of the one random folder that works. There are also about 4 files which are in The D: directory which are not in folders and display a file size but will not open (Say file is inaccesible when i try to open). Oddly, they display a file size in the window but when checking their properties, it says file size zero.
 
Did you take owership of the files? You may have to login as an administrator instead of the regular user account I'm sure you're using.

If that doesn't work, you can always restore from backups.
 
I am the admin and the only name on the computer so there doesnt appear to be ownership problems. Also, its odd that i can open one folder and access the files without problem, yet everything else is a no-go.

As far as backups, I dont think I have any since I just reformatted C:

I cannot figure out why the D: drive still reads as having 52gb of files on it, yet every folder in the drive save one reads as zero file size and when I select all the content of the drive with a select box, the total size reads as 2.77gb, the size of the one working folder.
 
Originally posted by: poncherelli2
I am the admin and the only name on the computer so there doesnt appear to be ownership problems. Also, its odd that i can open one folder and access the files without problem, yet everything else is a no-go.

As far as backups, I dont think I have any since I just reformatted C:

I cannot figure out why the D: drive still reads as having 52gb of files on it, yet every folder in the drive save one reads as zero file size and when I select all the content of the drive with a select box, the total size reads as 2.77gb, the size of the one working folder.
Click to expand...

Try actively taking ownership of the files.

I don't know about the size issue, or if that could be a side effect of not having permission to access the files. If taking ownership of them doesn't work, I'd just restore from backups.
 
Originally posted by: poncherelli2
How can I restore from backup? I formatted the whole C: partition where any backups would have been with system restore
Click to expand...

Where ever you backed them up to. DVD is probably the cheapest/best option these days, except for maybe removable hard drives.
 
Originally posted by: poncherelli2
I am the admin and the only name on the computer so there doesnt appear to be ownership problems. Also, its odd that i can open one folder and access the files without problem, yet everything else is a no-go.

As far as backups, I dont think I have any since I just reformatted C:

I cannot figure out why the D: drive still reads as having 52gb of files on it, yet every folder in the drive save one reads as zero file size and when I select all the content of the drive with a select box, the total size reads as 2.77gb, the size of the one working folder.
Click to expand...

n0cmonkey is correct. Listen to him.

When Windows applies NTFS permissions to a file, the permissions are stored based on a user's SID (basically a number that identifies a user).

When you reinstalled Windows, all of the SIDs from the old OS were wiped out, and the OS created new SIDs for the new users.

The permissions say user 12345 can access the files, but you're logged on as user 98765. User 12345 doesn't exist in the new OS.

Take ownership of the files and you should be fine.

(If you had any files that were encrypted with EFS (encrypting file system), those files are well and truly gone.)
 
hmm, it seemed to be a permission issue. Ive finally gotten it to change the permissions as it wasnt allowing me before and I can access the files. Thanks for your help- it was a big scare for me. I've gotten Acronis Trueimage and am going to start backing this stuff up.
 
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