NTFS changed to FAT somehow - can't access drive now

  • Thread starter Thread starter Charlotte
  • Start date Start date
C

Charlotte

PROBLEM: Drive 1 had WIN2000Pro on it. Formatted NTFS. I
upgraded motherboard and CPU. I tried to reinstall
WIN2000Pro over old installation. I tried a fast and
manual repair. Both failed. Enter Drive 2. I installed
fresh copy of WIN2000Pro on it (NTFS format). Now I can't
access Drive 1. Bios sees it. Somehow Drive 1 is now FAT.
I have no access to the drive. No drive letters.

QUESTION: How do I access drive WITHOUT losing data?
 
Charlotte,

What error message do you receive when you attempt to assign a drive letter
to the volume?

Steps to assign a drive letter to a volume:

1. Log on as Administrator or as a member of the Administrators group.

2. Click Start, go up to Settings, and then click Control Panel.

3. Click Administrative Tools, double-click Computer Management, and
then in the left pane, click Disk Management.

4. Right-click the drive, partition, logical drive, or volume for which
you want to assign a drive letter, and then click "Change Drive Letter
and Paths".

5. Click Add.

6. Click "Assign the following drive letter" (if it is not already
selected), either accept the default drive letter or click the drive
letter that you want to use, and then click OK.

Jeff Patterson
Microsoft Support
 
Well, I have made some progress Jeff. I got a drive letter
assigned to this 40GB drive. I've tried using the convert
command to go from FAT to NTFS. It says there is not
enough room. I made sure W2K was updated through SP4.
Still no luck. It states not enough room.

I have also tried reparing the disk with the W2K install
disk. No luck there. It says the HD is corrupt.

Since updating W2K to SP4, I get a message when starting
up Windows that the drive is... well, it says it's FAT. I
have a feeling the drive is part FAT & part NTFS. I still
have no idea how this happened. I guess while I was trying
to repair it the first time. How that could have happened
I don't know.

I ran a chkdsk on the drive. It wanted to fix it and
thought it was a non W2K drive, so I said NO to the fix.

???

Thanks for the help Jeff.
-Charlotte
 
UPDATE: I bought Partition Magic. It had me remove Roxio
GoBack. Before I did that, I reverted the drive back to
before I started this project. That still didn't fix the
problem, so I disabled GoBack. That fixed it. Thanks.

-C.
 
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