XP Loses Track of Disk Partitions

[Guest]

I just converted XP, overlaying the ME operating system. This took several
tries but eventually it worked, including incorporating my second harddrive
which is partitioned into three FAT32 drives.

It worked fine for about a week or so, and I used each of the drives. Then
-- XP simply lost track of one of the drives -- didn't see it at all.

I used a DOS boot and Norton Disk Doctor to recover the date (which Norton
could see just fine). So I restored the partition using Norton, but needed
to reformat the drive in XP -- which only allows formatting to NTDS, so I
have a hard drive with two FAT32 drives, and one NTDS.

Fine, except now XP is losing track of directories in the FAT32 drives -- my
entire Springteen library automatically converted to a single unusalbe 32KB
file.

Any way to arrest this? Or fix the lost data?

XP has been a big loser for me -- even the crappy ME didn't lose track of
entire drives and directories.

Helpful suggestions appreciated.

--Warren Fwy

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I just converted XP, overlaying the ME operating system. This took several
tries but eventually it worked, including incorporating my second harddrive
which is partitioned into three FAT32 drives.

It worked fine for about a week or so, and I used each of the drives. Then
-- XP simply lost track of one of the drives -- didn't see it at all.

I used a DOS boot and Norton Disk Doctor to recover the date (which Norton
could see just fine). So I restored the partition using Norton, but needed
to reformat the drive in XP -- which only allows formatting to NTDS, so I
have a hard drive with two FAT32 drives, and one NTDS.

Fine, except now XP is losing track of directories in the FAT32 drives -- my
entire Springteen library automatically converted to a single unusalbe 32KB
file.

Any way to arrest this? Or fix the lost data?

XP has been a big loser for me -- even the crappy ME didn't lose track of
entire drives and directories.

Helpful suggestions appreciated.

--Warren Fwy

You probably made a fatal mistake when upgrading from WinME
to WinXP. WinXP is a rock-solid operating system; cloning it onto
WinME, which was pitched at the home and games market, will
result in numerous compromises for which you now pay the price.
I suggest you re-install WinXP onto a clean disk and you won't
have any more problems.

About your lost library: All important files must be backed up to
an independent medium once a week. Disk space is cheap, and
if you use an external USB disk enclosure then the backup process
is fast, simple and effective.

 

[Stephen Harris]

I just converted XP, overlaying the ME operating system. This took several
tries but eventually it worked, including incorporating my second
harddrive
which is partitioned into three FAT32 drives.

It worked fine for about a week or so, and I used each of the drives.
Then
-- XP simply lost track of one of the drives -- didn't see it at all.

I used a DOS boot and Norton Disk Doctor to recover the date (which Norton
could see just fine). So I restored the partition using Norton, but
needed
to reformat the drive in XP -- which only allows formatting to NTDS, so I
have a hard drive with two FAT32 drives, and one NTDS.

Fine, except now XP is losing track of directories in the FAT32 drives --
my
entire Springteen library automatically converted to a single unusalbe
32KB
file.

Any way to arrest this? Or fix the lost data?

XP has been a big loser for me -- even the crappy ME didn't lose track of
entire drives and directories.

Helpful suggestions appreciated.

--Warren Fwy

Do you mean NTFS? NTFS should be able to read a fat32 partition
but not the other way around. One way to get around win xp formatting
the disk to NFTS is format first with win 98, then you get an option later
with win xp for a fat32 format/intall. NTFS is preferred for security
reasons.

 

[da_test]

You probably made a fatal mistake when upgrading from WinME
to WinXP. WinXP is a rock-solid operating system; cloning it onto
WinME, which was pitched at the home and games market, will
result in numerous compromises for which you now pay the price.
I suggest you re-install WinXP onto a clean disk and you won't
have any more problems.

About your lost library: All important files must be backed up to
an independent medium once a week. Disk space is cheap, and
if you use an external USB disk enclosure then the backup process
is fast, simple and effective.

It's possible a third party recovery tool would help.
Have you tried running chkdsk on the bad partition?
I would run it first with out the /f just to see what it says.

getdataback data recovery is supposed to be a good product
http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

PS I also "updated" windowME > xppro.
I found a way that works. Strip it down as much as you
can first. I uninstalled the audio card, reverted the
displap to standard VGA, uninstalled the ethernet;
uninstalled all hardware that I could. uninstalled ASPI,
and VIA's utilities. Installed XP and let it install IT'S
version of the drivers - success.
Dave

 

[Richard Urban]

Windows XP, no matter what type of partition it is installed on, can read
both fat32 and NTFS just fine.

Windows 9x/ME, on the other hand can only read fat32 partitions and must be
installed on the same.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Thanks, your response confirms where I thought this was going.

Fortunately, I did have everyting backed up to DVD -- still it's a hassle to
reload 260GB of data from 60 disks.

The sad thing is that Microsoft says that cloning XP on top of ME is the
PREFERRED option to pursue. They can't imagine how much misery they're
causing by not being able to admit they made a mistake with ME.

--Warren Fwy

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm not aware that Microsoft ever said that an upgrade from
WinME to WinXP is the preferred option. WinME is the last
(and least . . .) member of the Win9x family of OSs, and
upgrading from a DOS-based OS to one built on the NT
engine will always entail lots of compromises. A clean
installation is likely to give far superior results.

About your 60 DVDs: You might save yourself time and
money by moving to a disk-based backup system.

 

[Tim Slattery]

So I restored the partition using Norton, but needed
to reformat the drive in XP -- which only allows formatting to NTDS, so I
have a hard drive with two FAT32 drives, and one NTDS.

Windows XP can read from and write to FAT32 or NTFS (not NTDS)
partitions. You can have any number of either in any combination, it
doesn't make any difference. XP will not create a FAT32 partition
larger than 32GB, because NTFS is available and is a *much* better
choice for large partitions. It will create FAT32 partitions of 32GB
and less.

Fine, except now XP is losing track of directories in the FAT32 drives -- my
entire Springteen library automatically converted to a single unusalbe 32KB
file.

Any way to arrest this? Or fix the lost data?

Start by running chkdsk on the volume, either from a console window
("DOS box") or by right-clicking on the partition, choosing
"properties", clicking "Tools" and clicking "Check now..." under
"Error checking".

XP has been a big loser for me -- even the crappy ME didn't lose track of
entire drives and directories.

It's possible that it was about to, that there was something wrong
with this partition that was just about to manifest.

FWIW, NTFS partitions are far less prone to this kind of thing.