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Can't read data written in FAT32 XP system in WIN98

A

AMD K9

Senior member
Hi I had a new computer for 2 weeks and then returned it. It had WIN XP and it was formatted in FAT32 I believe. I ran a slave drive that had data previously from my WIN 98SE HD. Well while I used the XP system I had data saved and I copied that data to my slave drive. Well now I can't boot or run the slave drive in my other computer as it says no OS found or if it's a slave then no drive letters appears. Did XP corrupt my Win98 OS on that drive and the partition table in general? Isn't Fat32 in XP the same as FAT32 in WIN98?

Just a note the slave drive in question is a 60gb Maxtor drive.
 
Another odd note which may or may not be related, is that an additional HD that I had not used for a long time since it had previously been reformatted by mistake, was recovered fully in XP even though that drive was FAT32. Well I formatted that drive in XP but it wouldn't let me format it in FAT32 only NTFS. Seems strange as I thought XP could format a slave in FAT32 or NTFS.

Just a note the slave drive in this post in question is a Western Digital 120gb.
 
Yes the drive shows up in the BIOS from the Adaptec ASH-1233 Ultra ATA 133 controller card. Not in Windows Explorer though. It appears as Device 1 or IDE1 I can't remember which as I have since unplugged it.
 
Could it have been possible that the XP was in fact NTFS and still able to read/write to that FAT32 formatted slave drive? What are the ramifications of that FAT32 drive if XP with NTFS was writing to it? No longer able to be read by WIN98SE? If not, I am pretty confident if I install it as a slave in an XP system I will be able to access all the data and move it off and do a reformat (I have enough hard drives to manage this comfortably).
 
Originally posted by: AMD K9
Another odd note which may or may not be related, is that an additional HD that I had not used for a long time since it had previously been reformatted by mistake, was recovered fully in XP even though that drive was FAT32. Well I formatted that drive in XP but it wouldn't let me format it in FAT32 only NTFS. Seems strange as I thought XP could format a slave in FAT32 or NTFS.

Just a note the slave drive in this post in question is a Western Digital 120gb.
Click to expand...

Wait, so you reformatted this drive in NTFS and now you want to boot Windows 98 off it? 😕

XP can read from and write to both FAT32 and NTFS drives. It should not alter or corrupt the format tables in any way. AFAIK, XP can format drives in NTFS or FAT32, however FAT32 partitions are limited to 32 GB.
 
Chad no, the second drive in question I am not wanting to do anything with until I get an XP system with NTFS, as that's how I formatted it.

I am wanting to read data I have written (Maxtor 60gb - FAT32) from the XP system in my old computer either as a Master or a slave. It is currently unrecognizable by Windows 98SE.
 
Originally posted by: AMD K9
Chad no, the second drive in question I am not wanting to do anything with until I get an XP system with NTFS, as that's how I formatted it.

I am wanting to read data I have written (Maxtor 60gb - FAT32) from the XP system in my old computer either as a Master or a slave. It is currently unrecognizable by Windows 98SE.
Click to expand...

Try downloading a Windows 98 bootdisk from bootdisk.com. Boot from the floppy with only the Maxtor drive connected (as primary master). Run FDISK and make sure that the partition is recognized and that it is set as active. Exit FDISK and run FDISK c: /MBR. Reboot without the floppy and see if you boot into 98.
 
Thanks Chad I will try that. But Iam a little cautious about writing over the MBR as the drive had Maxtor's DDO installed prior to me installing it as the slave on the XP. To be honest that may be the reason this drive isn't working on my system now as the DDO isn't necessary with my new Ultra ATA card.

I tried unistalling the DDO through Maxblast 3.0 but the remove DDO option was greyed out for some reason. Will re-writing the MBR render this drive useless if I try that?
 
Ok, I looked at the drive in F-Disk and out of the 60gb, it shows only an 8gb partition, which if my memory serves me correct was probably the amount of data from XP that I copied to it. Why would FAT32 XP corrupt my FAT32 Win98SE drive, trashing the patition table? Basically I have to wait till I can get my hands on an XP system to get this data off, but then once I do it seems I can't place that back on a FAT32 HDD. Once you go NTFS, you can't go back?
 
Originally posted by: AMD K9
Ok, I looked at the drive in F-Disk and out of the 60gb, it shows only an 8gb partition, which if my memory serves me correct was probably the amount of data from XP that I copied to it. Why would FAT32 XP corrupt my FAT32 Win98SE drive, trashing the patition table? Basically I have to wait till I can get my hands on an XP system to get this data off, but then once I do it seems I can't place that back on a FAT32 HDD. Once you go NTFS, you can't go back?
Click to expand...

did you use a recent version of fdisk? either that or you might have used a special boot overlay program that came with the drive. boot programs like ontrack's or maxtor's used to be used to get over the limits of the bios and os in terms of drive size. If so, you have to reinstall that on your CURRENT BOOT drive to be able to access drives that were partitioned wit it. I don't recommend it though.

as to NTFS converting back to Fat32, Programs like partition magic can do that.

Fat32 drives can go way over 32G (I have an 80G Fat32 in my Archos AV380) but you will have to format it in Win 9x as you are FORCED to choose NTFS in WinXP if you format a drive over a certain size there (32G sounds correct). Accessing big drives in Fat32 using XP should not corrupt it though. However accessing and writing to a drive that was formatted with a boot overlay when you boot from another drive without the boot overlay would be dangerous to your data.
 
Well I can't recall whether or not I uninstalled the On Trac software before installing the FAT32 Maxtor as the slave.

So many caveats with Ez Bios/DDO, that you have to think things 3 steps in advance before proceding or else you corrupt the drive. I always had to re-configure the BIOS so it would work with the DDO, as well as setting the jumpers for capacity limitation setting, and when you figure there are 3-4 drives I have to do this for, and the jumpers are different on certain drives even between the 3 Maxtors...

Apparantly I am screwed then, until I get the XP system so I can move off all that data, but then how will I be able to transfer that data back to a FAT32 drive?
 
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