COMPUTER Hard drive Mess (problem) - HELP ME!

weeeplop

Senior member
Jul 19, 2001
245
0
0
I had a beautiful IBM harddrive with 30 gb running Windows XP (NTFS format).

I wanted to install FreeBSD, so I used PARTITION MAGIC 7.0 to partition the harddrive.

During the parititioning, Partition Magic 7 found a bad sector and it stopped operation.

My computer acts like the hard drive does not exist ( I can see it in fdisk ).

I guess the only way is to format it, so now I bring the harddrive to my friend's computer to take out the information I want saved.

My friend's computer runs Windows XP (FAT32).

I installed my harddrive as slave in my friend's computer.

My friend's computer will ask me if I want to format my harddrive.

Is that because her's in FAT32 format and my hard drive is in NTFS?!

HELLLLP! THANKS!
 

Ornery

Lifer
Oct 9, 1999
20,022
17
81
You're supposed to back this stuff up BEFORE screwing around with it. Buy another HDD, install your OS and whatever the hell you want in there. Then add your old drive on the secondary controller and see what you can do with it. After you get your data off it, use it for backing up from now on.
 

geekender

Platinum Member
Apr 26, 2001
2,414
0
0
No your friend's computer sees a problem with the master boot record and thinks the drive needs to be fixed if it is asking to format. NTFS and FAT32 to XP are only filing systems once you are logged in you should be able to see both. Try installing lost and found or another disk recovery agent and you may be able to salvage some of your data. Otherwise, format and chalk it up to experience and learning to keep good backups (been there).
 

Nitemare

Lifer
Feb 8, 2001
35,461
4
81
Not much you can do..if one instance of xp can't recognise an ntfs or xp hard drive..you are toast

only thing possible is a disk recovery option..try Norton system works or something..

then in the future...NEver ever...create a hard drive with just one partition..system partitions are named for a reason...they should only include the OS and related files.