FAT system of one partition destroyed! help!! 1

[whizkiddo]

Hi,
I have a 20 Gb hard disk which i partitioned into two aprts (each of 10 GB) on one i have instaled win98 and on the other winXP. Now since winxp is NTFS based sytem that partition does not show up in win98. However win xp correctly shows the win98 partition and allows me to access all data fromm that partition also. win Xp somehow just hung and refusd to restart in any mode (safe , last known good settings etc) after booting in win98 and running FDISK it shows the existence of another partition but the File system or FAT system details are not shown. it seems somehow they have been destroyed. i have really important data in that partition how can i get it? i tried making this diska slave to another harddisk (with win NT installed) but though NT detected both partitions for the XP partition it did not allow me in saying "file system not recognised"!!! Help dudes i m desperate that data loss would mean a lot of efforts gone waste. i dont even know how did this happen. someone plz shed some light on this.

 

[wolluf]

1. Have you tried recovery console (may not work at all if it can't recognise the partition, but worth trying) -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307654.

If it loads, try running chkdsk.

2. Similarly for running a repair -

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;315341

3. Try a data recovey app with drive as slave in another machine. This one's free -

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

- but it might have trouble if the partition table's been damaged (as its Ntfs). There are many other commercial ones - use Google - at various proces. Some recommended on these forums.

 

[Jontmke]

If all else fails and you have to delete and redo that partition, remember that XP can run in a fat32 partition. It is just that fat32 has some limitations as to size and file security compared to ntfs.

BTW, the ntfs on XP is different then the ntfs on NT. Thats why it won't see it.

JON