need help coverting FAT back to NTFS

[13371]

I messed my harddrive up pretty badly, i was messing around with some dos programs (lol) and I accidently erased my MFT on a harddrive, now it thinks its a FAT drive not NTFS. Is there any way I can recreate the NTFS structure without losing my data Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[wolluf]

You'll probably need a data recovery app - but its not clear exactly what you have done. I thought the MFT was managed as part of NTFS file structure - how did you manage to delete it from dos - which can't normally even see NTFS?

I've got no idea how or even if you can rebuild the NTFS - I'd doubt it - so reckon trying to recover what was on the drive is best option.

Google will find you many data recovery apps. Here's a couple of commercial ones recommended by other tek tips users:-

http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

http://www.webattack.com/get/filescavenger.html

 

[13371]

actually i did this is linux Thanks for the tips, I am using GetDataBack for the recovery. I have 2 hds a 120 and a 160 and of course it is the larger one that is messed. Where should i put the files that I recovered? Onto DVD+R's? or just on my current harddrive. I want to keep the windows xp settings that I had, is that possible

 

[wolluf]

You'll have to work out where to put the recovered files, depending on their size - I don't know how much you need to get back (160GB disk - but how much do you actually need)? When you say keep XP settings - what do you mean? You're only recovering files - you'll need to do a clean install when you've finished. If you can recover your profile folder, you could try to restore that when you've reinstalled all apps (but personally, I'd just recover stuff like documents & email)

 

[13371]

I have one more question... I recovered all of my files... Will i be able to just reformat the drive then slap all the recovered files back on, w/o having to reinstall windows =)

 

[wolluf]

No - you'll have to reinstall windows (unless you've recovered EVERY file & the complete folder structure too - and even then I'd be very surprised if just copying them back (and creating a new boot sector) would work. I'd certainly just reinstall - wouldn't attempt to just recreate the previous installation (but if you feel like being a pioneer!.....)