Reformatting problem any help?

  • Thread starter Thread starter RetroRadioDJ
  • Start date Start date
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RetroRadioDJ

I installed a 300gb hard drive in a computer as a slave.
backed up everything to it.

then i reformatted the computers main drive, a 120gb drive.
installed xp pro.

now the 300gb slave shows up as 128gb drive that must be formatted to
use. I assume its going by the amount of actual free space.

question is, how do i get it to show up as the 300gb, and access my
files?
 
RetroRadioDJ said:
I installed a 300gb hard drive in a computer as a slave.
backed up everything to it.

then i reformatted the computers main drive, a 120gb drive.
installed xp pro.

now the 300gb slave shows up as 128gb drive that must be formatted to
use. I assume its going by the amount of actual free space.

question is, how do i get it to show up as the 300gb, and access my
files?
Click to expand...
You don't mention what version of XP you have - XP could originally only see
127gb - you need SP1 to use larger drives.
Graham
 
yeah, its xp pro, and was downloading service pack one when i left for
work.

so thats the whole problem, after sp1 installs i can get to the drives
contents?

thanks for the quick reply.
 
I installed a 300gb hard drive in a computer
as a slave. backed up everything to it.
Click to expand...

How did you do that ? By copying or by writing an image file to it ?
then i reformatted the computers main
drive, a 120gb drive. installed xp pro.
Click to expand...
now the 300gb slave shows up as 128gb
drive that must be formatted to use.
Click to expand...

XP does have a problem with drives over 128GB.

Presumably you had at least SP1 installed when you initially
added the 300GB drive and you reinstalled just basic XP,
so you dont have support for drives over 128GB currently.
I assume its going by the amount of actual free space.
Click to expand...

No, it sees the drive as 128G in total. Likely you managed
to write to it in that state and thats why it now claims that it
needs to be formatted, you've stuffed the directory structures.
question is, how do i get it to show up
as the 300gb, and access my files?
Click to expand...

If you hadnt wrecked it by writing to it without support for drives
bigger than 128G, you should slipstream SP2 onto the original
XP distribution CD and install that. That gives you support for
drives over 128G from the start. You can still do that now.

Getting the data off the 300G drive now is harder.
I'd personally see what Easy Recovery Pro sees of
the drive once you have got support for drives over
128G back in the installed XP again. ERP aint free tho.
 
RetroRadioDJ said:
so, am i screwed or not?
Click to expand...
No I don't think so, as in your original post you clearly said that the
larger drive was, and still is, the slave drive - installing XP on your
main 120gb drive should not have effected it at all. Once you have SP1
installed you should see all the 300gb slave drive just as you did before...
 
so, am i screwed or not?
Click to expand...

Did it happen like I suggested as a possibility ?

If it did, how badly screwed you are really depends on
how you did the backup and what you wrote to that drive
without support for drives over 128G installed in XP.

If the backup was an image file, and you didnt write too
much to the drive, it may be possible to recover the
image file even when the directory structures are screwed
by the write wrapping over the directory structures if you
didnt write too much to the drive in that state.
 
No I don't think so, as in your original post you clearly said that the
larger drive was, and still is, the slave drive - installing XP on your
main 120gb drive should not have effected it at all. Once you have SP1
installed you should see all the 300gb slave drive just as you did before...
Click to expand...

The 300G drive shouldnt show up as needing to be formatted when
viewed from the clean install of XP without support for drives over 128G.
 
well, im home, now xp sees the whole drive but still says it needs to
be formatted, how can i just get back to my files?
there was 150gb of stuff on that.




Rod said:
before...

The 300G drive shouldnt show up as needing to be formatted when
viewed from the clean install of XP without support for drives over
Click to expand...
128G.
 
well, im home, now xp sees the whole drive but still says it
needs to be formatted, how can i just get back to my files?
there was 150gb of stuff on that.
Click to expand...

You still havent said whether that 'stuff' is in an image file or just
a simple explorer copy, and what you wrote to the drive just after
the clean XP install without support for drives over 128G.

If its just simple files, the drive may well not be that fragmented
and you may find that something like Easy Recovery Pro can get
most of the files back for you. It aint free tho.

What's happened is that the write to the drive with XP without 128G
support has likely wrapped around and stomped on the directory
structures and thats why XP says it needs to be formatted.
 
i just simply copied files to that drive before i reformatted the
master.

after the xp install on the master drive, i didnt write anything to it.
 
i just simply copied files to that drive before i reformatted the master.
Click to expand...
after the xp install on the master drive, i didnt write anything to it.
Click to expand...

You sure ? If you didnt write anything to it after the clean install
of XP, it should still have seen the contents of the drive, and writing
to it without support for drives over 128G installed, that does risk
the write wrapping and stomping on the directory structures.

I'd still try Easy Recovery Pro, but it aint free.
 
RetroRadioDJ said:
I installed a 300gb hard drive in a computer as a slave.
backed up everything to it.

then i reformatted the computers main drive, a 120gb drive.
installed xp pro.

now the 300gb slave shows up as 128gb drive that must be formatted to
use. I assume its going by the amount of actual free space.

question is, how do i get it to show up as the 300gb, and access my
files?
Click to expand...

Other than needing SP1 for support of large drives you might want to see
if you need additional drivers if your drive is hanging of a raid
controller or other motherboad controller.

I encountered a similar problem: XP did not deal with a >128 hard drive
of mine. In my case the drive was hanging of a promise raid controller
(not in raid mode). Even though the promise bios supports large drives,
I needed to download an IDE driver for the promise chip.

I was fooled into thinking XP had correctly recognized it because it
reported the correct size based on a format under 98SE (where I used
the drive to full capacity: 160 GB). Whenever I tried to open certain
files it would squak. I finally reformatted the drive and discovered XP
only say 128 GB until I loaded the promise driver.

Roland
 
well, i got hold of a copy of getdataback software, it is pulling the
files off as i type this, took it two days to scan and recovered over
71000 files. good piece of software that.

thanks for that info though, going to remember that.
 
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