Hard Drive Fat Changed

[Guest]

I run a 3 drive system. My primary drive is a 120g(NTFS) Maxtor, secondary
is a 40g(FAT 32) Maxtor and my third is a 6g(FAT 32) Seagate. My Problem is
that I removed the 3 drive and replaced it with a old 528m(FAT 16) to get the
files I needed of of it. I transfered the files and replaced the drive with
my original 6g Seagate. I redetected the drive in bios. Booted my WinXP and
suddenly a screen I have never seen before pops up. It states that my it has
detected a stability error in my third drive and would I like to stop it from
fixing it. Before I finished reading the error WinXP repaired the error and
finished booting to the login screen. When I logged in, I found my third
drive was no longer a 6g FAT 32 drive but was now a 528m FAT 16 drive with
massive directory corruption. Now as far as I can tell Windows In all its
glory replace the MBR of the 6g drive with that of the 528m drive. I have
been unable to restore the original MBR. Other applications tell the
directorys and original data are still present and uncorrupted, but can not
be accessed while the boot sector thinks the drive is 528m and FAT 16.

Can anyone help me, I needed the data on that drive, plus I would really
like to know how Windows changed the partition and drive properties.

Thankyou ahead of time.
Wanderer ( wandering how windows did that)

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi,

No idea how it happened, but the testdisk tool from cgsecurity.org is often
useful for recovering from these situations.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Al Romanosky]

Just a hunch - but check when you switched drives the first time did you
use auto detect or manually enter parameters?
If auto detect does not recognize the 6 gig HD - enter parameters manually.
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AL(KB3U) & Darlene Romanosky N. Ft.
Myers, FL
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