XP installation deleted patitions

  • Thread starter Thread starter muggie2
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muggie2

Had a glitch with XP SP3, and had to reinstall Windows. The install was weird
- it took three tries to recognise the hard drive (Samsung Spinpoint 1000GB
SATA), and when it did, it skipped the whole "Format, Quickformat, delete
Windows files" section and went straight into the quickformat. I managed to
stop it, but by then the partition tables were borked, and it then refused to
reinstall Windows on the hard drive at all.
I reinstalled on a little backup hard drive, and used a 3rd party utility to
scan the Samsung. It can't find everything, but it can find a restore point
file.
Is it possible to use that restore point to rebuild the hard drive the way
it was, partitions and all, even if Windows is (obviously) not installed on
that hard drive?
 
Hi muggie2,

You wrote that you had a glitch with XP SP3 and had to reinstall
Windows.

Which version of Windows XP and Service Pack Level were you trying to
install on the SATA Hard Drive?
Windows XP Professional x64 Edition? This version does support SATA Hard
Drives.

You can recover Hidden deleted partitions with Acronis Disk Director
Suite 10.
 
Windows XP does not have native support for SATA.
Click to expand...

Somehow, it does. When I installed my first SATA drive all I had to do
was plug it into the SATA controller plug, start the computer, and it
was detected and installed. In addition, the paperwork stated that with
XP SP2 no external drivers were required; as long as there was a
controller to plug it into, just install the drive & start the computer.
I did, then proceeded to format, etc., and all has been fine every
since. The CD that came with it did have drivers, and was for MAC,
Linux, older win98, etc..

Installing XP I've heard is a little more work, but my images worked
fine after a Repair Install was run on them when later I exchanged a
SATA for the EIDE boot drive.

Your link is a little confusing to me in view of my experience detailed
above. It's old, but not that old (2003) I noticed. I definitely never
had to use F6 to install any drivers for it.
I wonder if it's an SP2 addition that came along after SP2 as a
hotfix or something? That would be good to know.

Ah, a quick look in Google came up with: "Windows XP does not provide
drivers for *all* the SATA controllers, therefore..." so apparently
it depends on the OEM setup of the computer. Based on the install and
the instructions that came with it (a Western Digital), it was already
known to be compatible with the XP SATA drivers and thus there was no
problem.
I didn't realize there would be such differences, but apparently
there are. I lucked out and didn't realize it; guess it pays to read
the adcopy<g>! I wonder if it's still the same case today? I'd guess
it is. Learned something new!

HTH

Twayne
"How Do I Install Windows XP on a SATA Hard Drive"
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org/how_do_i_install_windows_xp_on_a.htm
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand that qusetion fully, but I wonder if you could
put that drive back as the boot drive, boot from the XP installer CD, go
into the menu mode, and boot with the "last known good configuration"?
It's F10 to get there on this machine; ymmv I'm sure. Then pull the CD
out and try a Restart normally and see if it'll boot up? Kind of a long
shot but I've had stranger things work<g>!
Personally I don't know of any way to manually reconstruct all the
files & folders it'd take for a registry although I know the list is
available. Doesn't sound like anything one could manually do.

Twayne
 
Hi Twayne,

Windows XP Home Edition Original CD or Upgrade CD does not have support
for Hard Drives larger than 137 GBs.

Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2 CD or Upgrade CD does have
support for Hard Drives larger than 137 GBs in size and supports SATA Hard
Drives.

XP Slip-Stream Service Pack 2 created CDs do have support for larger
Hard Drives and SATA Hard Drives.

The statements also apply to the Professional Edition version.
 
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