Corrupted MBR? Now Shows No Data/Files

[Roger]

I installed a new 120GB HDD and used Partition Magic 8.0
to divide it into two 60GB partitions; however, an
existing Drive F:\ 40GB now shows no data... perhaps
corrupted by Partition Magic 8.0 ???



My system is XP Home Ed. Disk Management now recognizes
the drive as a Primary Drive Basic 38.1GB Online Healthy
(Active) . . . but it does NOT indicate any type of file
system (eg - NTFS).



Windows Explorer recognizes the drive, but indicates it
is not formatted (& I certainly don't want to format it &
lose all the data on the drive. It shows the drive as a
Local Drive with no size, but I suspect the data is still
there.



The new 120GB drive is intended as a backup for Drive
F:\ Boy am I having fun!)



Google found an article on where someone had problems
with Partition Magic 8.0 overwriting their Master Boot
Record (MBR), solution recommended was to use Recovery
Console to apply command "FIXMBR". I hesitate to do this
without first-hand experience from someone.


Ideas?

Thanks very much . . .

 

[Joseph Conway [MSFT]]

FIXMBR will write a standard MBR to the drive. Depending on what pointers
PM put on the drive you should be able to use that command and see your data
again. You may want to speak with the PM people as well.

 

[Robert Green]

I installed a new 120GB HDD and used Partition Magic 8.0
to divide it into two 60GB partitions; however, an
existing Drive F:\ 40GB now shows no data... perhaps
corrupted by Partition Magic 8.0 ???



My system is XP Home Ed. Disk Management now recognizes
the drive as a Primary Drive Basic 38.1GB Online Healthy
(Active) . . . but it does NOT indicate any type of file
system (eg - NTFS).



Windows Explorer recognizes the drive, but indicates it
is not formatted (& I certainly don't want to format it &
lose all the data on the drive. It shows the drive as a
Local Drive with no size, but I suspect the data is still
there.

Possibly the partition boot sector is corrupted (usually the case when
Windows indicates a formerly good partition is unformatted).

The new 120GB drive is intended as a backup for Drive
F:\ Boy am I having fun!)



Google found an article on where someone had problems
with Partition Magic 8.0 overwriting their Master Boot
Record (MBR), solution recommended was to use Recovery
Console to apply command "FIXMBR". I hesitate to do this
without first-hand experience from someone.

FIXMBR is not likely to help.

Check out BootMaster at the site in my sig. Its free. You might want to
create a diagnostic file (explained in the docs) and email it to me before
making any changes to the disk.

Robert Green
FileREcovery.Biz
BootMaster Partition Recovery
http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz
bob[dot]green[at]filerecovery[dot]biz

 

[Alex Nichol]

I installed a new 120GB HDD and used Partition Magic 8.0
to divide it into two 60GB partitions; however, an
existing Drive F:\ 40GB now shows no data... perhaps
corrupted by Partition Magic 8.0 ???



My system is XP Home Ed. Disk Management now recognizes
the drive as a Primary Drive Basic 38.1GB Online Healthy
(Active) . . . but it does NOT indicate any type of file
system (eg - NTFS).

Run PM again, and select that drive - PM may have set it as a Hidden
drive, in which case it can Unhide it. The symptom matches a drive
marked as Hidden