Unable to view data stored from Win 98 in Win XP

I have a comp. with 2 HDD's ( 40 GB + 120 GB ) the first one has 4 partitions, on one of which I have win 98 (initially installed) and on another partition I have Win XP (loaded later).All partitions are on FAT32.I had no problems until I added the new HDD ( the 120GB ). The new drive has 6 partitions ( 5 with 20 GB and 1 with 10 GB ) again all of them are FAT32 formatted drives. Now since the time I have installed this new drive, from XP environment i'm not able to see the data that I stored when I was in win 98 environment.It only shows the data as per the operating system i.e. data stored in win 98 is visible when you boot to 98 but not when you boot to XP & similarly data stored in Win XP environment on the new partitions are visible only when I boot to XP and not from 98. Would be greatful if someone can help.

 

You
- can see the partitions but can't see the data
- can't see the partitions at all?

 

Thanks for taking intreast.

I can see the partitions but not all of the data stored in it.Another strange thing, I had renamed the partitions from XP but I dont see those names in XP.Earlier the partition drive letters were different in XP from 98 but I changed them to same drive names..still no luck

 

Hmmmm. Odd indeed and I don't have AN ANSWER right off.

In XP's Disk Manager (start=>run=>compmgmt.msc), do you see everything you have and do the sizes and partition types look like you expect?

 

Still nothin

Yes, XP Disk Manager identifies and shows all partitions to be heathy and I can store data as well but once data stored (from XP) is not visible when I boot back to 98 however when again get back to XP, the saved data is visible.

Win 98 also shows all the partitions but if I get back to XP ,I do not see the data that I saved while being in 98 .

I guess it has something to do with the limit of extended partitions in 98, FDISK limits the number of extended partitions and even the size of partitionsfor Win 98. Can you please help ?

 

Are you using any 3rd party boot manager?

Have you tried using the Recovery Console and the FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands? (longshot - do backups first)

Did you create the partitions with FDISK? If so did you enable large drive support?

Have you run scandisk and chkdsk on the respective systems?

I'm sorry I have nothing more specific to offer since this is a strange problem to me.

EDIT: Do not run CHKDSK with the /f or /r switch unless you have adequate backups. It has no support for undoing the changes like SCANDISK does and has been known to cause data loss!

 

Thanks for writing back Surfdude,

No I'm not using any 3rd party boot manager.
Yes I have tried those options with Rec. Con. - no luck.
Initially I tried creating partitions with FDISK with support for large partitions enabled but as it limited me to the size of partitions and the number of partitions that I could create therefore I made all of my partitions (extended drive with logical partitions) using the Disk Manager of Win XP.
Yes, Scandisk has been run on all drives and it doesnt show any abnormalities.

Desp. waiting for some more help...

 

Another thought - Do you have both drives set for "Cable Select" and do you have the master connected to the farthest connector from the MOBO, as is normal?

You might also want to check with the drive manufacturer of the added drive to see if any known conflicts exist. Sometimes certain drives don't mix well.

EDIT: Another thought, is it possible that the limitation of the maximum allowable characters in a path name is coming into play? That's a bit of a stretch but considering the odd problem, we must consider odd possibilities.

 

6 partitions or fewer partitions and some logical drives?

DRD

 

Your problem is indeed strange. I would not trust storeing data on the hdd till the problem is fixed. If the OS is not seeing the files stored by the other OS , it could over write them.

IF you have not done so get the updated FDISK program at http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=263044
run it to view how it sees the partitons.

If you boot into pure dos, can you see the files stored by XP ?

IF you select properties on the hdd does both OS's show the same size, used, and free space for each partition? If you add up the size of each partition is it around 110g?