Hello,

today I formatted my entire hard drive and reinstalled XP.
Now, after reinstalling, I tried to get my files which
were saved on a mobile hard drive during the process.
XP tells me that my mobile hard disk needs to be formatted
first. The interesting thing is that I get the exact same
message on my other computer whose system I haven't
changed a bit.
What is a possible reason and is there a way I can get my files?

Thanks in advance,
Stefan

Sounds like it was unplugged improperly and may have messed up the
partition table.

I would start by downloading the Knoppix Linux recovery cd
ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/dist/knoppi...7-01-04-EN.iso

You can burn this CD as an ISO file with
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm

Once you've done this boot from this CD with the external drive
attached and see if you can browse its contents (Linux can be a little
more forgiving). If not theres a utility called "testdisk" which can
recover the partitions, however this isn't a simple task for the
average user.

On Apr 22, 1:30 pm, "stefan.steinerber...@gmail.com"
<stefan.steinerber...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> today I formatted my entire hard drive and reinstalled XP.
> Now, after reinstalling, I tried to get my files which
> were saved on a mobile hard drive during the process.
> XP tells me that my mobile hard disk needs to be formatted
> first. The interesting thing is that I get the exact same
> message on my other computer whose system I haven't
> changed a bit.
> What is a possible reason and is there a way I can get my files?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> Stefan

> Once you've done this boot from this CD with the external drive
> attached and see if you can browse its contents (Linux can be a little
> more forgiving). If not theres a utility called "testdisk" which can
> recover the partitions, however this isn't a simple task for the
> average user.

I tried to access it under Ubuntu and was unable to.
testdisk tells me "Bad ending head (CHS and LBA
don't match)". Any idea?

On Apr 22, 2:16 pm, "stefan.steinerber...@gmail.com"
<stefan.steinerber...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Once you've done this boot from this CD with the external drive
> > attached and see if you can browse its contents (Linux can be a little
> > more forgiving). If not theres a utility called "testdisk" which can
> > recover the partitions, however this isn't a simple task for the
> > average user.
>
> I tried to access it under Ubuntu and was unable to.
> testdisk tells me "Bad ending head (CHS and LBA
> don't match)". Any idea?

>From the testdisk homepage:

If the HD geometry mismatches the geometry used when creating the
partition table, warning messages such as: Bad sector count, Bad
relative sector or Bad ending head are displayed when Analyse is
selected from the main menu. If you see such errors, you may need to
use the Geometry menu to change the logical number of heads. Try 255,
16, 32, 64, 128 and 240 heads until TestDisk finds all your
partitions. 255 and 240 are the most common head values. If you
installed Linux as the only OS on your hard drive, it tends to default
to only 16 heads.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Menu_Geometry

It could also mean the drive has some bad sectors...

> If the HD geometry mismatches the geometry used when creating the
> partition table, warning messages such as: Bad sector count, Bad
> relative sector or Bad ending head are displayed when Analyse is
> selected from the main menu. If you see such errors, you may need to
> use the Geometry menu to change the logical number of heads. Try 255,
> 16, 32, 64, 128 and 240 heads until TestDisk finds all your
> partitions. 255 and 240 are the most common head values. If you
> installed Linux as the only OS on your hard drive, it tends to default
> to only 16 heads.http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/Menu_Geometry

I tried that but it had no visible effect.
Furthermore I ran a program called "GetDataBack for ntfs" and it was
able to show me the files including the file tree. However, I cannot
copy
the files because I need to license the program first.
Perhaps anyone of you knows of a freeware program that could do the
same job?

Best wishes,
Stefan

Yeah, this freebie has proven successful for me

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