Just lost 200gigs.... Thanks XP

[Michael]

Windows just raped me up the arse. The damage is done, but for future
reference I'd like to know what happened and who's fault it was (mine
or Bill Gates). Please comment.

- Drive #1 , Serial ATA 250 gig, was partitioned 50 gigs on C, 200 gigs
on D

- Drive #2, IDE 250 GIG, was partitioned 250 gigs all on E

- Motherboard was obviously set to boot from the S-ATA drive.

- Windows XP Home got damaged. Major virus/spyware infestation.

- I decided to go for a clean install ... booted up the XP CD.

- Got to the part where you pick which partition to install on

- Was going to just put it on C again but it warned me that installing
two copies of XP on the same partition is a no-no... so I deleted the C
partition of 50gigs (S-ATA drive)

- The IDE drive partition of 250 GIGS was deleted instead


I hate you Bill.


WinXP seems to be confusing ATA partitions with S-ATA partitions... Is
this common? Anyone had problems like this before?


ps - I hate you Bill.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows setup does not delete a partition unless you
instruct it to delete it. In your case, that's exactly what
happened, albeit inadvertently.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------

:

| Windows just raped me up the arse. The damage is done, but for future
| reference I'd like to know what happened and who's fault it was (mine
| or Bill Gates). Please comment.
|
| - Drive #1 , Serial ATA 250 gig, was partitioned 50 gigs on C, 200 gigs
| on D
|
| - Drive #2, IDE 250 GIG, was partitioned 250 gigs all on E
|
| - Motherboard was obviously set to boot from the S-ATA drive.
|
| - Windows XP Home got damaged. Major virus/spyware infestation.
|
| - I decided to go for a clean install ... booted up the XP CD.
|
| - Got to the part where you pick which partition to install on
|
| - Was going to just put it on C again but it warned me that installing
| two copies of XP on the same partition is a no-no... so I deleted the C
| partition of 50gigs (S-ATA drive)
|
| - The IDE drive partition of 250 GIGS was deleted instead
|
|
| I hate you Bill.
|
|
| WinXP seems to be confusing ATA partitions with S-ATA partitions... Is
| this common? Anyone had problems like this before?
|
|
| ps - I hate you Bill.
|

 

[torontodennis]

Windows setup does not delete a partition unless you
instruct it to delete it. In your case, that's exactly what
happened, albeit inadvertently.

I reject your half-ass answer...

I did not 'hit the wrong key'... it was not a decision that made
lightly.. it was something that I stared at for 2 min before deciding
And in order for this "typo" to have happened I would have had to
hit the down arrow twice then hit L (or whatever it was) instead of
just hitting L.... highly unlikely.... It was either Windows XP or a
bios thing.... I blame XP

Anyone else experienced S-ATA / ATA mix ups on install?

 

[R. McCarty]

There is a chance of a "Unformat" - depending on how much change
has been written to the disk. Partition Magic has an equivalent Undo
function. Just search the web for "Unformat". Wouldn't speculate on
% of success, but offer you an alternative.

 

[torontodennis]

There is a chance of a "Unformat" - depending on how much change
has been written to the disk. Partition Magic has an equivalent Undo
function. Just search the web for "Unformat". Wouldn't speculate on
% of success, but offer you an alternative.

Hmmm, thanks good info.. Fortunately I didnt lose anything important..
I had moved most the important stuff off the IDE drive and onto the
newer S-ATA drive. If I had lost the S-ATA I'd be praying to the
'partition magic' gods....

I have some certifications, I've partitioned/formated countless HD's in
my day but I'm new to mixing s-ata with ide..... at this point I'm just
more curious (and furious!!!) about why it happened.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Michael

No need to fuss.. just use the backups you previously made for eventualities
like this..

 

[Ghostrider]

I reject your half-ass answer...

I did not 'hit the wrong key'... it was not a decision that made
lightly.. it was something that I stared at for 2 min before deciding
And in order for this "typo" to have happened I would have had to
hit the down arrow twice then hit L (or whatever it was) instead of
just hitting L.... highly unlikely.... It was either Windows XP or a
bios thing.... I blame XP

Anyone else experienced S-ATA / ATA mix ups on install?

Note that Windows XP setup does not natively recognize S-ATA
drives. In doing a clean install, there is an option to put
in the S-ATA drivers by using the F6 key. If this had not been
done, then the only HD that Windows XP setup sees is the IDE
drive and it identified your Drive D as Drive C. Installing to
S-ATA drives have always been tricky and until Windows XP setup
provides the drivers for it, treat it like a pure SCSI HD setup.

 

[R. McCarty]

It (Disk Mgmt) can be difficult with the various ways drives are
presented between DOS based tools and the OS. Drive 0 may
be shown in one boot while it appears as Disk 1 in others. Then
you mix in Volume labels and you can easy ZAP the wrong one.
I've had more than one instance of a customer doing a "Clone"
and they got the Source/Destination drives reversed - Opps.

Most Disk Management tools need:
1.) Apply
2.) Are you Sure ?
3.) This (....) is what will happen, is that what you want ??

 

[Guest]

:-O Oh, you are a mean, mean man. Yeah an' here's a little salt to rub
in there too. (yeesh)

 

[torontodennis]

Ok.... The plot thickens...

So.. its an hour later.... I had finally installed windows by
unplugging the IDE drive and making sure it still wasnt showing in the
BIOS... formatted my small 50gig partition on the s-ata drive and
installed XP... it's on the C drive.... the 200gig leftover is on D
drive... no problems, things look normal

I plug back in the IDE and turn it back on in the BIOS...reboot.. It
shows up fine in XP as E drive, although its unformatted (as
expected)... everything looks normal...

I'm installing my MB drivers, specifically the AMD cool 'n quiet
driver.. when it says "Error: Cannot find boot.ini" I find that
curious, I know XP -must- have one, particularily if theres multiple
harddrives..... So I go take look... and its not there on C (yes, I see
hidden/system).... I find it on my D:\ drive (the other part of the
s-ata partition)... ntldr & ntdetect are there too...

XP is on C... but it's booting off D..... Weird... why did it install
like this???? This -has- to be related to the partition mix up... any
thoughts?

 

[torontodennis]

Michael

No need to fuss.. just use the backups you previously made for eventualities
like this..

Backing up 500 gigs is not realistic or possible. You MVP's are batting
0-2 today.

 

[torontodennis]

I'm sorry MVP's, I'm grumpy today =)

 

[torontodennis]

Note that Windows XP setup does not natively recognize S-ATA
drives. In doing a clean install, there is an option to put
in the S-ATA drivers by using the F6 key. If this had not been
done, then the only HD that Windows XP setup sees is the IDE
drive and it identified your Drive D as Drive C. Installing to
S-ATA drives have always been tricky and until Windows XP setup
provides the drivers for it, treat it like a pure SCSI HD setup.

Hmmm interesting theory.. this sounds plausable... but some
corrections: it mixed up C and E... C was the 1st partition on the SATA
drive... D was the 2nd SATA partition.... E was the 1st (only)
partition on the IDE drive... and all drives showed up in setup...

Ive installed before on S-ATA drives with no drivers... I just havent
mixed with IDE much... but now I'm looking at my motherboard (Asus
A8N) CD and I notice it does have an option to "Make Silicon SATA/RAID
Driver Disk".... is this what your refering to?

Can anyone confirm? Do you need drivers for S-ATA drives?? (NO RAID)

 

[R. McCarty]

If the SATA controller is motherboard based, then to XP it (controller)
appears as either an IDE or SCSI and no drivers are required. If the
SATA controller is say a PCI Add-in card then you may or may not
need the disk depending on how the SATA card implements control.

For RAID functionality - you'll most likely need to supply the driver.

 

[Guest]

Backing up 500 gigs is not realistic or possible. You MVP's are batting
0-2 today.

Actually the MVP's are 2 for 2. They are right on both subjects. Granted
Carey always seems to give a short right to the point response without all
the information in the middle. But He is right. In order for you to have
deleted your 250 gig hard drive you would have had to select it with the
arrow keys and then hit the D key then the enter key and then the L key. Not
simply just hitting the L key and been done with it as you stated earlier.
What may have happened is you may have done the right thing and deleted the
50 gig partition off and it went to unpartitioned space and you ended up
seeing the 250 gig partition highlighted and thought it had formatted it?
Who knows maybe you did format the 250 gig partition. The only way that
would have happened is if you had moved to it with the arrows and deleted it.
Which means in the end it is your fault because you messed up plain and
simple. Not Bill or MS's fault what so ever.

Furthermore having a backup of 500 gigs of info is realistic because
anything important that must not be lost, MUST have a backup via a Mirrored
RAID or another backup solution. So make it 2 for 2 for the MVP's and 0 for
2 batting for you as it was your fault.

If you would have kept your system clean with a Valid Internet Security
solution you would not have had this problem in the first place so theres
strike 3 against you and you're out. Sorry for the misunderstanding you had
with your computer. Better luck next time... How bout next time you take it
to a qualified technician and let them handle the dirty work.

Joe

Kemco IT Professional

 

[torontodennis]

In order for you to have deleted your 250 gig hard drive you would have had to select it > with the arrow keys and then hit the D key

Wrap your head around this Kemco: I selected the right drive. Now throw
out the 50 lines of BS you just wrote and go back to the drawing board.
Note the boot.ini post.

Furthermore having a backup of 500 gigs of info is realistic

I believe I said it was not "realistic or possible" .. and for me it is
not. Thanks for the speach though.

If you would have kept your system clean with a Valid Internet Security
solution you would not have had this problem in the first place so there

Thanks for another utterly useless McResponse. Have a nice day!

 

[Guest]

When you boot with the XP cd doesn't it display the PATA drves/partitions
first, then the SATA drives/partitions?

 

[torontodennis]

When you boot with the XP cd doesn't it display the PATA drves/partitions
first, then the SATA drives/partitions?

No it displayed the two S-ATA partitions first and the PATA partition
on the bottom.

 

[Kerry Brown]

Windows just raped me up the arse. The damage is done, but for future
reference I'd like to know what happened and who's fault it was (mine
or Bill Gates). Please comment.

- Drive #1 , Serial ATA 250 gig, was partitioned 50 gigs on C, 200
gigs on D

- Drive #2, IDE 250 GIG, was partitioned 250 gigs all on E

- Motherboard was obviously set to boot from the S-ATA drive.

- Windows XP Home got damaged. Major virus/spyware infestation.

- I decided to go for a clean install ... booted up the XP CD.

- Got to the part where you pick which partition to install on

- Was going to just put it on C again but it warned me that installing
two copies of XP on the same partition is a no-no... so I deleted the
C partition of 50gigs (S-ATA drive)

- The IDE drive partition of 250 GIGS was deleted instead


I hate you Bill.


WinXP seems to be confusing ATA partitions with S-ATA partitions... Is
this common? Anyone had problems like this before?


ps - I hate you Bill.

I sympathise with you. I have almost done the same thing before. At the very
last prompt I decided something wasn't right and backed out. Sure enough
when I got to the same point again and very carefully studied the screen the
partitions were not shown in the correct order. I would have deleted the
wrong partition. Every motherboard, chipset, and drive controller seems to
handle SATA & PATA combinations differently. For future reference when
installing Windows remove all drives that aren't directly involved in the
install. That means physically disconnect everything except the drive you
are installing Windows to, one floppy drive, and one optical drive. This
includes unplugging built in flash card readers from the motherboard,
printers with card readers, anything that shows up as a storage device.
Since I started doing this I have had no problems with weird installs,
seemingly random drive letter assignments, etc..

By the way it is possible to backup 500 GB. I have over a TB backed up.
Granted I backup in stages and only backup changes on a regular basis but if
you value your data you back it up or eventually you will lose it.

 

[torontodennis]

For future reference:

Because of the boot.ini thing, and my curiousity, I decided to do the
whole thing again.

It happens every time. I pick the 50gig partition on the SATA drive (c)
to format or delete, and it does the IDE drive (e).

I apologize to Bill Gates, as it is looking more and more (75%) like
this is an issue with my motherboard or bios.

I dont apologize to the 0-3 ""IT Professionals""....... shame.......
shame...... Think before you insult people's intelligence by spewing a
generic carbon copy "McResponse"... You haven't seen it all. You
haven't done it all. Don't be arrogant. Keep an open mind as you go
around acting godly and posting your signatures.