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[SOLVED] "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

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#1 ·
This is my first post here & in panic!

If this issue has been posted before then I must appologize.

I have Windows XP SP2 in 500GB SATA2 Seagate Drive. It was partitioned in three: 50GB<system>, 200GB, 200GB. I had recently came back from a honeymoon and saved all of my photos and videos in it. I recently purchased 2nd Seagate 320GB hard drive for an additional storage.

I decided to upgrade my OX to Vista for my old hard drive but installation went south, making old drives not accessable. So I then decided to go back to XP. I grabbed my new drive and installed XP. Then I grabbed my old drive and connected hoping to just retrieve data and reformat the drive afterword.

This is when hell broke out.:sigh:....Not only the XP fail to see partitions (50, 200, 200) but popped out with a message "Drive is not formatted". I tried reading other threads and comments that were made, so resolution.

I m devestated in a thought that I might have just wiped out all my honeymoon data.....

I do not know if having OS installed on the old drive plays any part in this but if anyone has advice, please let me know:sigh:.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Re: "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

it's all in the jumpers.... Take the new hard drive install windows xp... now with the old one move the jumper to slave.. make your new one the master. once you do that you'll see all your folders and files on the older drive.... Don't worry mate your safe!

need more help on how to set jumpers let me know... it's easy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZUX9X8t23Y
 
#4 ·
Re: "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

Thanks for your input but my drives are SATA drives and does not have a jumper settings. No master & no slave setting exist in SATA drive.

Thanks for your input thou:sigh:
I'm sorry I new that and forgot to get back to you... They are all save so don't worry about that...

try something simple first

download this program it will/should open that hard up for a repair!

PC Inspector File Recovery... As long as you don't format or delete anything your safe!

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23069-order,1-page,1/description.html
 
#7 ·
Re: "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

Let me see if I get this straight

Drive A - original drive with XP on it and 3 partitions 50/200/200

Upon installing Vista upgrade, it went south.

At what point in the install did it go south? Any error messages as to why it did? Can you see the drive in Disk Management? Is it assigned a drive letter? Try reinstalling the upgrade ? (I dont use upgrade versions, only full installs because of this issue, so I am not familiar with the process. )
 
#8 ·
Re: "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

If XP is installed on the 320GB and your priority is to recover the photos and data that are on the 500GB drive give find & mount a try.

Else same as Geekgirl : do you see the drive in disk management ? (right-click my computer => manage => disk management). Did you use an upgrade CD ?
 
#9 ·
Re: "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

Thanks a lot for your advices, geekgirl and justpassingby.

I seems to had a break through on this issue. Not totally solved yet but I found out it is a partition issue.

I tried the active@partition recovery demo version and it was successful in finding all my data. Find & Mount had found partial data.

I purchased the active@partition recovery and run the full scan.

I feel relieved that I see my data but another obsticle arose.
I was able to have a good night sleep!:sleep:



Some challenges from Active@Partition Recovery software:

When I try to recover this message pops out "Unable to recover the partition because it overlaps with other partition(s)!" I did read the help section but not enough clarification.

500GB Hard Drive
(G:) Partition
Local Disk (#0) OS Files - 50GB
Local Disk (#1) Picture Files - 200GB
Unallocated Partition
Local Disk (#0) Picture Files - 200GB (same as above)
Local Disk (#1) Video Files - 200GB

I had three partitions on my drive 50GB(OS), 200GB(Picture), 200GB(Video).
I can see that overlap and when I just try to "delete invalid partition" one of the overlaps, it won't allow it.

"Existing partition (G:) on 500GB disk will be deleted permanently."

I dunno if this action will wipe out my drive or just delete the partition....little scared. If anyone know let me know.

Thanks for all your help:smile:
 
#10 · (Edited)
Re: "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

To stay on the safe side you must avoid making any write operations on the drive (like deleting partitions, repairing the MBR or writing any data on the drive) until your data has been copied on another physical drive.

I've never used active@undelete but from what I've heard it's a good product. There seem to be a file explorer, can you browse your files and copy-paste them on the 320GB drive ? Else there's a file and folder recovery wizard. If you can't retrieve your data without making changes on the 500GB drive I suggest you backup the data that can be accessed by find & mount first, that program doesn't write anything on the drive so it can't make things worse.

Once all your data is backed up on another hard drive you can wipe the 500GB drive, repartition it and reinstall with your OS CD.

Since you've bought Active@Undelete they will provide support if you contact them :
http://www.active-undelete.com/contacts.htm

edit : I realised I was talking about active@undelete and you bought active@partition recovery. Both programs are made by the same company, sorry for the confusion. I would still contact them to know what's the best course of action : http://www.partition-recovery.com/contacts.htm
 
#11 ·
Re: "Drive is not formatted" Plz help, I m in panic.

thanx a lot for all your advice,

My request to get my data back has finally ended:grin:

Software which was most instrumental was active@partition recovery.

It was a painful 3 days but I have learned great deal.

Once again. Thank you all for your advice!
 
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