reading an unformatted drive

[Jasmeet Singh]

Is it possible to access an unformatted hard drive
without having to wipe out all of the data with a format
in win xp pro?
The reason I ask is when I was using win 98 i stored all
of my downloads (mp3's etc) on a seperate hard disk but
when I upgraded to xp I cant access that drive.

 

[Jim Macklin]

XP can read/write to FAT32 as used by W98 and also to the
NTFS file system. If the drive is unformatted then it has
no data file structure. If the disk was FDISKed the
partition table was over-written, if the drive was formatted
the FAT table was altered to show all data cluster were open
to be written to...

Depending on what you did when you upgraded to XP, the disk
should be detected as your D: drive. Right click on MY
COMPUTER and select "manage" then look at your disk storage
to see if the drive is shown. Is it possible you did not
connect the IDE cable or the 12v power lead?

Don't format or you'll cause possibly more data loss. Even
if the drive was formatted, with the proper software or
procedures, the data can be recovered as long as you stop
any read/writes to the drive until you are ready to recover
the data. Do a Google for "data recovery" or "disk
recovery" One company's name comes to mind.DRIVE SAVERS.


| Is it possible to access an unformatted hard drive
| without having to wipe out all of the data with a format
| in win xp pro?
| The reason I ask is when I was using win 98 i stored all
| of my downloads (mp3's etc) on a seperate hard disk but
| when I upgraded to xp I cant access that drive.

 

[Jasmeet Singh]

The seperate hard was in FAT 32 and if I create a duel
boot to Win 98, I can still read everything in the drive.
The disc is detected in windows (drive D:\) and the
jumpers are set to slave. During the Win XP upgrade
nothing on this drive was touched. In the device manager
it says 'This device is working properly.' but when
trying to access it, it still says the drive isn't
formatted and ask if I'd like to do it now. I'll have a
go with with the disk recovery software.
Thanks for your time and if you have any more ideas let
me know.

 

[Pavel A.]

Is it possible to access an unformatted hard drive
without having to wipe out all of the data with a format
in win xp pro?
The reason I ask is when I was using win 98 i stored all
of my downloads (mp3's etc) on a seperate hard disk but
when I upgraded to xp I cant access that drive.

Most probably you did something that caused your partition become "hidden"
FAT32.
WinXP will see it as FAT32, even show volume label, but won't mount it.
You could do this for example by installing some boot manager.
If this is the case, it can be fixed by Partition magic.

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