FAT32 not readable by XP

[Kevin]

Hi all,

I have a partition that got "fixed" after corruption to "Fat32". However
that is not readable by XP or Win2K. The OS thinks the Filesystem is
corrupt. However if I boot off a XP formatted floppy, I can read the FAT32
partition!!

The problem is when I boot off floppy, I have no utilities! It's in a DOS
environment. When I boot up XP, I can't see that partition.

I can edit the partition to change the filesystem type but I don't know
exactly what they are. I know type "7" is NTFS,...

Does anyone know where I can find a filesystem type list?.. with their
codes?

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[Si]

Yes it is. I have XP Pro installed on a Fat32 disk no problem.

Si

 

[CS]

Hi all,

I have a partition that got "fixed" after corruption to "Fat32". However
that is not readable by XP or Win2K. The OS thinks the Filesystem is
corrupt. However if I boot off a XP formatted floppy, I can read the FAT32
partition!!

The problem is when I boot off floppy, I have no utilities! It's in a DOS
environment. When I boot up XP, I can't see that partition.

I can edit the partition to change the filesystem type but I don't know
exactly what they are. I know type "7" is NTFS,...

Does anyone know where I can find a filesystem type list?.. with their
codes?

Thanks,

Kevin

You're going to need a program that can edit the partition table in
order to change the "type". If you previously used such a program to
make changes to your partition table and it did not do it correctly,
then the partition may not be readable by the operating system. The
disk you're using can read the drive, but not XP/W2K. You may wind up
repairing the installation.

 

[*Vanguard*]

Kevin said in news:[email protected]:

Hi all,

I have a partition that got "fixed" after corruption to "Fat32".
However that is not readable by XP or Win2K. The OS thinks the
Filesystem is corrupt. However if I boot off a XP formatted floppy,
I can read the FAT32 partition!!

The problem is when I boot off floppy, I have no utilities! It's in
a DOS environment. When I boot up XP, I can't see that partition.

I can edit the partition to change the filesystem type but I don't
know exactly what they are. I know type "7" is NTFS,...

Does anyone know where I can find a filesystem type list?.. with their
codes?

Thanks,

Kevin

Got PartitionMagic? It include PTEDIT32.exe in its install path that
lets you edit the partition table (so you can change the partition
type). It may not be that the file system (FATs) are corrupt but rather
that the boot sector is invalid. You don't mention what the "fix" was.
For example, if you delete a partition, and if no partitions were
defined to reuse that unallocated space after deleting, or partitions
were created that reused that unallocated space from the deleted
partition but that disk area didn't get used yet, you can recreate it
exactly where it was (starting cylinder and size) and recover your
partition - but the boot sector of that recovered partition might not be
valid anymore.

A Google search on "partition type" would probably reveal several
articles with lists of the values and what partition type they
represent, like:

http://snipurl.com/6al7
http://snipurl.com/6al2

I've had partitions with corrupted boot sectors that were still
readable. However, the problem was that a drive letter wasn't assigned
so the partition was hidden while within Windows 2000/XP. Have you ran
Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to ensure a drive letter is and can be
assigned to that partition? If it is currently designated as a hidden
partition according to its type (rather than simply not being assigned a
drive letter) then this won't work because the option of assigning a
drive letter may be disabled.

My guess is you want "OC" (zero Charlie) for the partition type of
"Windows95 FAT32 (LBA)". I'm currently using BootMagic which will
change partition types to hide them when booting under a different OS.
When I boot under Windows XP, the partition type for my then hidden
FAT32 partition for Windows ME becomes "1C" (one Charlie). Windows XP
Disk Management can still see the partition but won't assign a drive
letter to it.

 

[Kevin]

Kevin said in news:[email protected]:

Got PartitionMagic? It include PTEDIT32.exe in its install path that
lets you edit the partition table (so you can change the partition
type). It may not be that the file system (FATs) are corrupt but rather
that the boot sector is invalid. You don't mention what the "fix" was.
For example, if you delete a partition, and if no partitions were
defined to reuse that unallocated space after deleting, or partitions
were created that reused that unallocated space from the deleted
partition but that disk area didn't get used yet, you can recreate it
exactly where it was (starting cylinder and size) and recover your
partition - but the boot sector of that recovered partition might not be
valid anymore.

A Google search on "partition type" would probably reveal several
articles with lists of the values and what partition type they
represent, like:

http://snipurl.com/6al7
http://snipurl.com/6al2

I've had partitions with corrupted boot sectors that were still
readable. However, the problem was that a drive letter wasn't assigned
so the partition was hidden while within Windows 2000/XP. Have you ran
Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) to ensure a drive letter is and can be
assigned to that partition? If it is currently designated as a hidden
partition according to its type (rather than simply not being assigned a
drive letter) then this won't work because the option of assigning a
drive letter may be disabled.

My guess is you want "OC" (zero Charlie) for the partition type of
"Windows95 FAT32 (LBA)". I'm currently using BootMagic which will
change partition types to hide them when booting under a different OS.
When I boot under Windows XP, the partition type for my then hidden
FAT32 partition for Windows ME becomes "1C" (one Charlie). Windows XP
Disk Management can still see the partition but won't assign a drive
letter to it.

To clarify, here's what happened:

- Initially had XP setup on drive2 partition1. During T-storm system
rebooted and never did come up, kept rebooting.
- Couldn't get system up, via safe mode, recovery console etc. RC kept
saying the drive was unreadable..
- Tried Norton Disk Doctor 2004 etc. no luck. Installed XP on another
partition (XP2) successfully but couldn't read the "bad" partition.
- Got this program from a friend called Partition Table Doctor that
supposedly worked wonders for his crashed HD
- Ran it, first off it said that the "bad" drive was set to "unknown" but
should be FAT32 and so it "fixed it"
- It did a scan disk and fixed one bad sector.
- After that point I can read the drive from DOS after booting off a floppy
but not from XP.

So that's where I'm at. I can read the drive in DOS, it's the only drive
that shows up. I tried switching the FS type to NTFS and Win95FAT32 but
it's still not readable by XP2.

If I could get network drivers loaded in DOS mode I could get the stuff off
that partition and then nuke it. There's about 900M of personal data on
there :-/

Thanks,

Kevin

 

[Greg R]

Since you can read fat32 & xp partition from an xp boot floppy.
Back up your data.

Then do a clean install of xp. You will need your key.
Make the whole drive fat32. This will correct any errors.

 

[Kevin]

I boot up with a floppy I created from XP, it doesn't boot up XP it boots up
DOS. I'm trying to find software I can use in DOS... just got some
utilities, network drivers etc. Am in process of trying that. As long as I
can get a network going on there I can move stuff off the machine.

Something else I noticed, when I used FAT32 (type 0b) it looked like
everything was there but when I did a search and copied certain files it
errored out with "sector not found". Switched it to Win95 Fat32 (LBA) and
those files copied fine. So I guess that's the format. It's not not
readable via XP.

Kevin

Since you can read fat32 & xp partition from an xp boot floppy.
Back up your data.

Then do a clean install of xp. You will need your key.
Make the whole drive fat32. This will correct any errors.

 

[Malke]

Since you can read fat32 & xp partition from an xp boot floppy.
Back up your data.

Then do a clean install of xp. You will need your key.
Make the whole drive fat32. This will correct any errors.

Or if you have two cd drives in the machine, one of which is a burner,
try booting with Knoppix. Knoppix is a Linux distro that runs off cd.
If Knoppix sees the damaged drive, use the burning program k3b to burn
your data to cd-r's. Then you can "nuke" the drive completely as you
wish.

Malke

 

[Alex Nichol]

You're going to need a program that can edit the partition table in
order to change the "type". If you previously used such a program to
make changes to your partition table and it did not do it correctly,
then the partition may not be readable by the operating system.

The one I suggest for the purpose is BootIT NG, from
http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full functional trial)

Download, to its own folder, extract from the zip, run the bootitng to
make a boot floppy.

Boot the floppy, Cancel Install, entering maintenance, then click on
Partition work. Highlight your partition in the large pane, and click
Properties. There you can adjust the partition type in the drop down
pane (which names the types readably so you can look in it for FAT32),
and also if it says 'unhide' click on that, and OK

 

[*Vanguard*]

Kevin said in news:[email protected]:

"*Vanguard*"


To clarify, here's what happened:

- Initially had XP setup on drive2 partition1. During T-storm system
rebooted and never did come up, kept rebooting.
- Couldn't get system up, via safe mode, recovery console etc. RC
kept saying the drive was unreadable..
- Tried Norton Disk Doctor 2004 etc. no luck. Installed XP on another
partition (XP2) successfully but couldn't read the "bad" partition.
- Got this program from a friend called Partition Table Doctor that
supposedly worked wonders for his crashed HD
- Ran it, first off it said that the "bad" drive was set to "unknown"
but should be FAT32 and so it "fixed it"
- It did a scan disk and fixed one bad sector.
- After that point I can read the drive from DOS after booting off a
floppy but not from XP.

So that's where I'm at. I can read the drive in DOS, it's the only
drive that shows up. I tried switching the FS type to NTFS and
Win95FAT32 but it's still not readable by XP2.

If I could get network drivers loaded in DOS mode I could get the
stuff off that partition and then nuke it. There's about 900M of
personal data on there :-/

Thanks,

Kevin

If it was a FAT32 partition, changing the partition type to NTFS is
obviously wrong. I know the filetypes by their hex values, not their
text descriptions. When you can read the recovered partition using the
DOS boot floppy, what is the partition type (as a hex value)? Is that
partition type for a *hidden* partition? If hidden, diskmgmt.msc in
Windows XP might not let you assign a drive letter to that partition
with the corrupted boot sector. Change the partition type to a
non-hidden FAT32 (LBA) type and then see if you can assign a drive
letter to it in diskmgmt.msc.

Otherwise, another tact might be to use PartitionMagic to resize an
existing partition (make it smaller to get some unallocated space),
create another FAT32 partition, boot using the DOS floppy, and then use
XCOPY to move all your files from the bad FAT32 partition to the newly
created FAT32 partition.

 

[Kevin]

Kevin said in news:[email protected]:

If it was a FAT32 partition, changing the partition type to NTFS is
obviously wrong. I know the filetypes by their hex values, not their
text descriptions. When you can read the recovered partition using the
DOS boot floppy, what is the partition type (as a hex value)? Is that
partition type for a *hidden* partition? If hidden, diskmgmt.msc in
Windows XP might not let you assign a drive letter to that partition
with the corrupted boot sector. Change the partition type to a
non-hidden FAT32 (LBA) type and then see if you can assign a drive
letter to it in diskmgmt.msc.

Otherwise, another tact might be to use PartitionMagic to resize an
existing partition (make it smaller to get some unallocated space),
create another FAT32 partition, boot using the DOS floppy, and then use
XCOPY to move all your files from the bad FAT32 partition to the newly
created FAT32 partition.

The type that works the best from that DOS boot floppy is Win95 FAT32 LBA
partition. I think it's type 0C.

I'm in process of burning a CD with Knoppix, if that works I'm home free.

Paritition Magic is a good idea... I do have a couple of larger partitions
that can definitely be shrunked down enough for a Fat32LBA partition.

After this mess I need to figure out a good backup solution. DVD, monthly
with DVD-RW incremental weekly. Not sure yet.

Kevin