Drive can't be read, files there

Partition Magic 8.0 will convert the NTFS to Fat 32 with no problems. I have done it several times. I also suggest exporing such alternatives as Ghost and Drive Image 2002. There are others out there that will work from what I read. But those 2 i definately use. I have a base image burned to cds that takes me 20 minutes to install. And then I to check updates, but every program that I want on the computer is there and that alone saves me several hours. Total time saved is about 5 - 6 hours.
Plus I have a clone to another hdd. You can Never have to many backups! The clone only take about 4 minutes to install.
My 2¢.

 

PM and Ghost are my friends
Although they do completely different tasks, they do them extremely well.
PM to shuffle, move, resize, remove, make, and convert partitions.
Ghost to clone, or image, and restore.
Two HUGE timesavers.

 

Well, if I could sort out the many options, I'd be a genius. And, I'm not.

Ok Train, let's say I use Partition Magic to change from NTFS to FAT32. What happens to the data on active drives? Are you saying that the data will still be there?

I still have the old C drive set up as a slave on MOBO IDE channel 1. This is the one that appears in Disk Manager without a drive letter and is a no show in My Computer. It is formatted NTFS. Do you think Partition Magic can do anything with this drive?

I may be wishful thinking, but could Partition Magic partition this drive where the OS part be separated and a readable partition set up for the data??

I am still recovering files from this NTFS drive to another NTFS drive using the Active Undelete software.


P.S. I set up as NTFS 'cause MS told me it was much more stable!! HA!!!

 

Generally NTFS is more stable, but when something goes wrong, it's really hooped. FAT32 may be slightly faster (depending on cluster size), and NTFS is more secure, but (as you're finding out) a FAT32 partition is MUCH easier to recover.
Using PM will change the partition, no loss of data.
I would clone the hooped drive (your old C) to another partition somewhere, just in case, and then do your worst to the original.
You'll either get it back or lose it completely, either way, the data will be saved on the clone.
PM won't recover the drive, however it may be able to be read/recover in DOS much easier if PM could successfully convert it to FAT32.
This is providing that you have PM already, or are willing to spend even more to get it.
Once the drive is converted to FAT32, you could probably just fdisk /mbr and sys it (if PM didn't look after those bits during the conversion), and get a drive letter for access.

(Not trying to usurp the thread, but email me for more info on PM if you like)

 

reboot covered it real well. And then threw some extra options in for you. All of them are good ones.

No, I have yet to lose anything while converting like that.

 

Hey Reboot & Train: You folks are a wealth of information and, If it wasn't for this board, I would have given up long ago. I'll be celebrating my 70th birthday in 6 weeks and I'll tell you that my mind is boggled by all this technology. Neither am I convinced I could have understood any of it it when I was 30.

I like the suggestion to clone the boloxed drive, but how do you clone a drive that has no %#@+! drive letter? I've been worried about this drive disappearing all along. I think "Active Undelete" has a utility to do this, so if no other way, I'll try that.

I have both Partition Magic and Drive Image. Reason no drive image in the first place is when I ran Drive Image it informed me that I had too many drives (3) and program wouldn't work! I wrote to Powerquest and asked them why they didn't tell me this before I plunked down my hard earned cash and got no response.

If I can get the drive cloned, I'll have at it with Partition Magic & email Reboot for more Info.

 

This is where it gets tricky.
The drive needs to be recognized in DOS, somehow.
Mounting it as a solo, ensure that BIOS sees it right, and then see if Ghost can read it. Ideally, I would put it on a controller card, in case there's anything strange in BIOS that's causing part (or all) of the problem.
If BIOS sees it correctly, you can use a startup disk, and see if fdisk reads it. If not, we're kinda stuck again, but if fdisk knows that it's a non-dos partition, then using the DOS/NTFS tools, we should be able to write a MBR, and that will then give it a drive letter in Windows (or DOS) for cloning.
As much as you want to save the data on this drive, and we're doing what we can (from a distance) to accomplish this, it may be time to low level format it, and get on...

(martinr121, Does this mean you're changing your handle to martinr122? I'll be 45 in about 6 weeks, and although I had a much earlier start on computers (began when I was 12, building my own), even I get boggled by some of the stuff that others take for granted)

 

With Drive Image 2002 make the rescue floppies. And use them. Also with Ghost again use the Floppy! The use of the windows GUI of DI has a screen that flat gets people into trouble when they first start using it.

Besides that puts you right into dos where things work. Plus it gets rid of the possible virtual floppy errors. Plus it will fall inline with reboot's post.

You only have 9 years on me. I be 60.

 

Now that us old codgers got together we will beat this thing yet.

Ok, I'm going to isolate the drive on PCI IDE card and then see if it is recognized. If so, I'll boot from floppy and see if FDISK will read it, then, fix MBR and the devil take the results.

P.S. If you don't see another post in a day or so, it means the computer went in the pond!

 

Beats the chipper, at least it can be salvaged

 

Yeah, I used the chipper on the last machine, now every time I mow the grass, little pices of metal fly everywhere.

 

Teach yah

 

It never stops. I go to clone the old C drive to a 19 gig empty partition on slave drive. Get message, not enough space.

It is probable that the old C had more than 19 used of 80. I guess I'll have to eliminate the partitions on secondry drive, it is 40 gigs & would have about 33 free.

I'm sure that would be enough, but will add to my confusion, in sorting out old data as this is where I have been recovering files to.

Hmm, is this data going to be readable when it resides on a readable drive, and, as apparently, most of old XP installation will be cloned, what doors might that open?

Will run partition magic on it, but tomorrow, Going to bed now.
Good Night all.

 

Just so you know about it then, but you may need to change the cluster size.

512 MB - 8,191 MB clusters are 4 KB
8,192 MB - 16,383 MB clusters are 8 KB
16,384 MB - 32,767 MB clusters are 16 KB
32,768 MB and above clusters are 32 KB

So, if you clone the stuff on the 80 to a 40, you will be ok.
But Partition Magic is what I use to change the cluster sizes if I need to. Sure hate to see a foul up like that after all you have gone through.

 

Thanks for the info Train, I'm not there yet.

I'm really getting frustrated!!! The new XP installation on new C drive is now running CHKDSK on D drive on every boot. This is repeat of problem that had previously occured and then for some reason cured itself . Ran CHKDSK D:/r, says all is OK, but still runs on reboot. In addition, instead of getting selected screen savers, I'm getting blank screen.

So, I decide I'd better get XP working right before I go on with the other fixes, but I'd better do a drive image first. Of course, Drive Image tells me can't image NTFS 5, whatever that means, so, I figure what the heck, I got Ghost, I'll just use that. So then Ghost tells me it cant ghost NTFS. So, I figure what the heck, I'll just take my chances and go for the repair without recovery options. So, I boot from XP CD & to do a repair, well the blankety blank thing tells me XP is not installed on new C. Offers to erase partitions on C to do a clean install. Well, nuts to that.

Talk about getting nowhere in a hurry!!!

Where did I put that chipper?

P.S. what are you doing up so early?

 

IM NOT EVEN GOIN TO

READ ALL THATS HAPPENED UP TO HERE..BECAUSE I HAVE HAD THIS PROBLEM ... WHAT YOU HAVE IS A FAILED INSTALL
OF THE O/S IN A PROTECTED BOOT SECTOR... THERE IS ONLY
ONE WAY TO TOTALLY FIX THIS.. YOU HAVE TO USE A WIN 98 BOOT DISK.. GO TO FISK AFTER BOOTIN UP ON IT..AND PULL EVERY PARTITION YOU CAN FIND ON THAT DRIVE.. THEN INSTALL
A NEW CLEAN PARTITION ON IT.. FORMAT THE DRIVE..AND GO FROM THERE.. AND I WILL TELL YOU..WITH WINXP AND NTFS THIS ISNT AN EASY ROAD TO WALK DOWN SOMETIMES WITH THIS TASK..IT WILL FIGHT YOU ALL THE WAY SOMETIMES.. THERE ARE 3 TOOLS THAT I USE TO WIN THIS DELIMA..SOMETIMES IT TAKES
TRYING ALL 3 TO FIND THE ONE THAT WORKS... MAXBLAST, OR A SET OF DOS DISKS.. OR. THE WESTERN DIGITAL EQUIVALENT OF
MAXBLAST.. DISK SOMETHING..I FORGET THE NAME.. ANYWAY
WIPING ALL PARTITIONS WILL BE THE ONLY WAY TO CORRECTLY FIX IT... NOW...IF YOU HAVE DATA THAT YOU REALLY WISH NOT TO LOOSE.. THEIRS A COUPLE WAYS TO GET TO IT SOMETIMES..
ONE IS TO SIMPLY SLAVE THE BAD DISK TO A GOOD ONE WITH A GOOD XP ON IT...THEN SEE IF YOU CAN READ IT AND MOVE FILES..
THE NEXT WAY IS TO TRY THE RESTORE CONSOLE FROM THE WIN XP CD... THE THIRD WAY IS TO MAKE WIN XP REPAIR ITSELF..
ITS A BIT INVOLVED..BUT YOU GO TO THE BIOS AND SET THE CDROM TO BOOT FIRST..THE DISK SECOND.. AND BOOT UP..
WHEN THE FILES QUIT RUNNING..IT WILL ASK YOU IF YOU WANT TO REPAIR OR INSTALL WINDOWS... THE REPAIR CHOICE IS A DEAD END LIE...YOU WANT TO CHOOSE INSTALL WINDOWS..
WHEN THAT SCREEN COMES UP..YOU WILL GET THE REAL PROMPT CHOICE FOR REPAIRING YOUR WINDOWS...RUN IT...BUT WATCH IT..WHEN ITS DONE..IT WANTS TO REBOOT..YOU MUST! ENTER THE BIOS AGIAN AND PUT THE FLOPPY FIRST..THE HDD SECOND AND THE CD DRIVE THIRD FOR BOOT CHOICES..OR YOU;LL NEVER BOOT UP ....
IF THAT FAILS... WIPE THE DISK LIKE I FIRST DESCRIBED.. ITS HOZED...

 

Please turn Caps lock off

 

Woke up about a hour early.

Chkdsk Runs Each Time That You Start Your Computer seems like what you want.

Thor those caps are murder to read.

 

Thanks to everybody who chimed in on this. Thor, the XP CD refuses repair as it cannot find the XP installation as I referred to earlier in this post.

This is the same problem I had with the old C drive that wasn't booting. Now, booted from CD, XP repair can't find the working installation! A different, clean install on a different formatted/ wiped drive.

Train, I followed that link, I don't have the specific HP scanner the KB article refers to, but since I have a HP scanner, I followed the instructions, no help. The article sends you on to another KB article, basically to replace the registry.

I had tried this fix earlier as you had previously posted that same link, machine could not find/copy ".sam" file (working in DOS) when trying to fix the old C drive. so I was stopped dead.

I didn't want to try that on the new C as the article tells you the fix will wipe all settings and take you back to square one. No thanks for the new C.

More links from that article take me to where I'd have to go to M.I.T. for my doctorate in computer science to keep going.

I did make some progress though, I used a reg cleaner and deleted every reg entry for the D drive it reported as "file not found ". (there were 226 of them) This cured the "scandisk runs on every boot" problem.

All this has brought me to the point where the prize (old C resurection) is not worth the continued time and efforts of this marvelous repair team.

I'll just recover whatever files I can using the "Active Undelete" program and wipe the old C drive.

I just hope I never have to try to run a repair installation again,
if it can't find a working XP installation, I sure can't figure out what good it is.

Many thanks to all, especially Train, I really appreciate all your help.

Martinr121

 

Just put your XP install on a FAT32 partition, and you won't have any of these "recovery" problems in the future.

I can't read what Thor posted, it's just too hard on these old eyes.

Chkdsk /f is the command you want, not /r