NTFS drive became FAT16 gibberish after fixmbr

[Guest]

About a month and a half ago, I added a 250GB hard drive to my Dell (running
XP Pro) with the original 80GB hard drive. After a hard drive transfer using
Norton Utilities, I set the new hard drive to be the C: boot disc. I had no
problems for six weeks. Then overnight a few days ago, the new 250GB became
inaccessible and could not boot. I re-installed the original 80GB drive as
the C: boot and set the 250GB as the 2nd hard drive. Norton found no
viruses, no hard drive errors, but many Windows errors that it could not
repair; SpySweeper found no adware or spyware.

Thinking I have a software corruption in the Windows boot area, I tried to
repair the Windows installation using the original CD, but it stated that the
250GB HD was a non-XP drive. [Note that I was able to see it from Windows
Explorer.] Foolishly, I decided to run the Recovery Console without saving
off data from the 250GB drive. After I ran FIXBOOT and FIXMBR, the 250GB
drive with NTFS became a reported 10MB drive with FAT16 gibberish.

I know I am foolish for not backing up the 250GB data when I had the chance.
However, is there any trick I can do to recover some data, or is it too
late? Can I convert my hard drive back to NTFS without a reformat?

Thanks in advance, Chaz

 

[Josh Graves]

Can I convert my hard drive back to NTFS without a reformat?

You can try using a tool such as XFDisk
(http://www.mecronome.de/xfdisk/)

Or, you can try using the the 'convert' application. I've never tried
it when the data was improperly reported as FAT16, but under normal
circumstances, it does not cause any data loss.

To convert an existing FAT or FAT32 volume to NTFS, follow these steps:

1. Click "Start", "All Programs", "Accessories" and
"Command Prompt".
2. At the command prompt, type the following, where drive letter is the
drive that you want to convert: convert <drive letter>: /fs:ntfs
For example to convert drive c: to NTFS:
convert c: /fs:ntfs
3. When the following message is displayed in the command prompt
window, type the volume label of the drive (Name of drive letter if you
are using one) that you are converting, and then press ENTER:
The type of the file system is FAT.
Enter the current volume label for drive letter:
4. When the conversion to NTFS is complete, the following line is
displayed in the command prompt window: Conversion complete

 

[Andy]

Try using a file recovery program.