OS change, now NTFS partition won't register

Hello All,

I am need of some MAJOR windows XP help.

I was running Windows 2000 up until this morning, and I decided to trade it in for Windows XP. Don't ask me why, but I did. I have 2 partitions... C: which is the os files and whatnot and D: which is storage space. Backups and the sort. Both partitons are NTFS

I installed XP no problem, and I get it up and running, and I go to access my D: drive and it says " D:\ Is not accessible Access Denied "

This worries me. I try to look at the properties of the drive, and it doesn't even know what to do with it or what it is. XP Doesn't even know that the partition is NTFS, it comes up as RAW with 0kb total and 0kb free so it's *******.

My question is how do I tell XP what my partition is, and get my files back? If I can't solve this I will be forced to go back to Win2k and I would like to try to stick with XP for a little while.

Please say someone out there can help me.

Tap

 

Did you go for a dual boot system or did you put XP over the top of 2K?

If over the top, were you using XP-home or XP-pro?

Where (partition) is the OS loaded?

 

Take a look at the MS KB article, HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP.

 

I am presuming that you performed an upgrade rather than a clean install. Did you back up your data prior to doing the upgrade? It sounds like the MFT (Master File Table) has corrupted. You can try booting into Safe mode, choose the recovery console, and run FDISK /mbr to try fix the master boot record.

 

You can try booting into Safe mode, choose the recovery console, and run FDISK /mbr to try fix the master boot record.

Crash Override - I don't think XP has fdisk. If you boot to the recovery console (rather than safe mode) you could run fixmbr to do the same sort of repair though.

 

Newt - You are correct. My brain must have been on the weekend already. I tend to presume that everyone is set up like me. I have fdisk.com on the root of C on all of my systems (about 2600). Thanks for the correction.

 

If you are staying with basic volume structures you can get by with using fdisk to rebuild the MBR I suppose but with dynamic disks I wouldn't trust it and with multidisk volumes you are absolutely gonna break stuff.

Maybe I'm just an old foggy but with 2K and later where you have a recovery console and commands like fixmbr, fixboot, and similar that are designed for the OS, I just feel more comfortable using them.