C Drive NTFS, D Drive FAT32 - Help 6

[KenWright]

Just upgraded a home laptop to XP. Laptop had a single hard drive partioned into C and D. OS is on C and C has now been converted to NTFS during the upgrade, and as such i can no longer see the D drive as it is FAT32. If I run Acronis Partion expert I can see the drive is there with data still on it and it tells me it is FAT32 (I assume that is why I can't see it), but how do I get to it.

Daughter apparently has homework on it she needs for the morning, and i'm now in her bad books - grrrr

Anyway i can convert it so I can see it and get to the data please.

Cheers
Ken..........

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[electronicsfreak]

Well I have to admit im always learning on things, and you seem to have did something that I thought was not possible. Having one drive that has fat32 and ntfs. As for fat32 can be seen by ntfs however fat32 cant read ntfs. Only thing I can say is try loading from the windows disc and load into recovery console. See if you can access it that way. If not I honestly have no clue what to do.

 

[KenWright]

Sorry, couldn't give me a step by step could you, only I have no idea what loading from recovery console actually means.

Cheers
Ken...........

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[wolluf]

this is old misconception - you don't access the different filestore types with other filestore types - you use the operating system - so windows xp can fully access both ntfs and fat32 partitions - so if you can't 'see' the fat32 partition, there must be something up with the partition.

Is the D: (fat32) drive a logical drive in an extended partition or a primary partition? What happens when you try to access this D: drive? (does it appear in explorer as D: drive - and hjave you run disk management run diskmgmt.msc to see what that says about it).

How did you convert C: (convert C: /FS:NTFS or did you use Acronis? Can Acronis convert D:. Has D: been set to 'hidden')

 

[BionicJohn]

Sounds like your partition info is corrupt, so you need to be very careful. If can make a copy of the data on the drive, then do so now.


Run Disk Management to check your partitions:

1. Log on as administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.

2. Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK.

3. In the console tree, click Disk Management. The Disk Management window appears. Your disks and volumes appear in a graphical view and list view.

Can you see both partitions?

More at:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/

LIVERPOOL FC - 5 times Champions of Europe. 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005.
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[bcastner]

As wolluf mentioned, XP has no issues with a mix of NTFS and Fat32 filestores.

Your issue is not that D: is Fat32.

Right click My Computer, Manage, and open Disk Management. Drive D should be identified there, or Action, Rescan Disks.

 

[KenWright]

Hi guys (Hey Bill).

Don't honestly know what logical/extended is. There is one hard drive, it has been partioned into C & D and the OS is on C

Have gone into Disk Mgmt, and can see drive but it was greyed out. Used Action / Rescan and it is no longer greyed out but is now referred to as a Healthy (Unknown Partition). It shows that it has used space and free space.

Was looking for an 'Initialize' option but can't see one. I can see a 'Mark as active' option but it is greyed out. the only options not greyed out are 'Delete Partition' and 'Help'

Regards
Ken...........

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[KenWright]

Also, I didn't use anything to convert the drive that i know of, so I'm assuming it happened during the upgrade and i just didn't see it.

I had been looking for a convert option on Acronis but couldn't see one.

Start / Run / compmgmt.msc gives me the same as as right clicking My Comp and selecting manage, and yes I can see both partitions there. Into Explorer though and no.

Regards
Ken..........

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[KenWright]

I didn't give the stars, so please don't think i'm out of the doo doo here. She wasn't supposed to have any important data on there, and she didn't tell me she had all her homework on there until after I had started ( Before you all beat me up :-> )

Just tried start / run / cmd / diskpart / rescan and no effect, so am just rebooting again on the offchance, but if any more ideas then please feel free.

Regards
Ken..............

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[bcastner]

Personal note: member KenWright is a Tek-tips forum stalwart, (and a very nice guy).

As a starting point, I suggest a chdksk /r done in recovery console:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=314058

 

[BionicJohn]

Start / Run / compmgmt.msc gives me the same as as right clicking My Comp and selecting manage,

It's the same thing by a different route.

The risk is that the usual (i.e Microsoft) method of re-creating the partition will mean you lose the data.

I'm not familiar with Acronis Recovery Expert, but it would seem it is capable of solving your problem.

User Guide:

http://us1.download.acronis.com/pdf/recoveryexpert_ug.en.pdf

LIVERPOOL FC - 5 times Champions of Europe. 1977, 1978, 1981, 1984, 2005.
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[KenWright]

ITS HIDDEN I THINK!!! I just tried using Acronis again and thought I would try adding a bit of space to it and see if that did the trick of getting it going, and i just noticed it lists the two drives as

C Pri,Act
D Pri,Hid

Does that change any of the last two suggestions? Am playing with Acronis now to see if i can find an option somewhere.

Cheers
Ken........

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[bcastner]

I warn you that this has the potential to really screw things up:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.html

 

[KenWright]

Hi Bill - Think I just did that. I was trying to move space from one to the other and then tried cancelling it because the values that came up were not what i had set. It crashed and now I can't start windows. Tried booting from Win XP CD and selecting the repair option and i get a message about the recovery console providing system repair etc and then it just goes to a C:\> prompt :-(

Think I'm toast here now.

Regards
Ken.........

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[KenWright]

FIXMBR

This Computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record. FIXMBR may damage etc

Do I have anything to lose at this point, or is theer some other way of trying a recovery perhaps?

Regards
Ken...........

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[KenWright]

Tried that but didn't help. Is 2am here so I'm off to bed now. Am going to use Recovery console to put new partition where C was, install XP and hope I can pick up the D drive later.

Catch up tomorrow - cheers.

Ken........

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[edfair]

I would be very hesitant about mucking with the partition table right now. It is like a grenade with the pin pulled and laying on the table waiting for the least jiggle to spring the handle.
I think some have used PCINSPECTOR as a recovery device. I've never used it so I can't speak for it.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[bcastner]

Ed,

I agree, but Ken is not your usual user.

The issue of the "hidden" status of the D: partition is woriesome.

It is just a bit flick to revert this, but I suspect malware in this case. I did a decent enough job in faq608-4650 and you as well have addresed these concerns quite handsomely. An excellent contribution to the literature:

http://www.michaelhorowitz.com/removespyware.html

 

[linney]

This comes from the "Disk Management" Help.

"A basic or dynamic volume's status is Unknown.

Cause:

The Unknown status occurs when the boot sector for the volume is corrupted (possibly due to a virus) and you can no longer access data on the volume. The Unknown status also occurs when you install a new disk but do not follow the wizard to create a disk signature.

Solution:

Initialize the disk. For instructions describing how to initialize a disk, see To initialize new disks.

For more information about volume status descriptions, see Volume status descriptions."

You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also prevent you from completing this procedure.

266745 - Error Message When You Run fixmbr Command

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;266745&FR=1&PA=1&SD=HSCH

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/...Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkd_tro_kyrr.asp

 

[linney]

Something to look at, quoted from the late Alex Nichol MS MVP.

Go to

http://www.bootitng.com.

look for MBRWORK in the free tolls and download it, put it on a DOS floppy (one made by formatting in XP and taking the MSDOS Startup disk option will do).

Boot that and run MBRWORK
Use options
1 (to back up the current state, so it could be restored with 2)
3 then 4 to delete the current code and tables
there will then be a possibility of using
A
which will scan the disk for 'signatures' of partitions and rebuilt the partition table then
5
to install standard MBR code so the disk could be booted