[edwinchang]

Hullo everyone... plz help me if possible....

i had a p133 computer before.... with windows 98 (in another language... chinese actually)

now i got a new comp... p4... and i installed chinese windows 98 first... then upgraded to ENGLISH windows2000 (with NT tech) in this comp.....

but i have some really important files in the old HD... so i transplanted the old HD to my new comp... and when i booted my new comp... it always says this msg: "one of ur drives needs to be checked for consistency, etc..." and then my old HD got checked... and when i'm in win2000, i tried to access the files in the old HD... but it says that the files r all corrupted... now i know i'm in big trouble... X( X(

so i moved the HD back to my old comp.... with hope that the old comp can still read the old HD... BUT IT CAN'T!!! ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
when i boot, it doesn't go to the old chinese win98 system... so i had to use a floppy to soft boot. And when i type in c:, the dos prompt goes to c drive alright... but when i type the command "dir", it says that the Volume in Drive C is AR... wut does AR mean? and did my HD format got changed?

ps. i partitioned my old HD to 2 drives... and on the old comp.. when i go to fdisk in dos... it says that the primary HD type is non-dos, and the secondary is dos....
wut should i do? is there any way i can recover my old files?
plz help~~ thanx~

 

[Doonz]

Here we go

Ok ...lets see the integrity of the drive...go to the makers site be it...western digital, seagate, ect...

under thier support site look for the drive diagnostics...lets see if the drive is good...if all else fails go to www.ontrack.com

bad drives are recoverable in a lab settings (not something your going to do with help from staples) and at $$$ cost

if the drive is good it will step aside form the more able body response:winkgrin:

 

[edwinchang]

The central question...

hi....
thanx for ur reply....
but today when i looked at the details more closely... i found out that my old HD has been converted to FAT32 (i think the original format was Fat16) by the Win2000.... is there any way i can change my HD format back to Fat16?
:upset:

 

[Midnight Tech]

Welcome to the forums, edwin! Bad news about going back to FAT16 - it's gonna take a format and reinstall. Sorry.

 

[edwinchang]

nooooooooooooooooooooooo
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
i'm goin insaneeeeeeeeeeeeeee
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
@#$$#$^#$%#@@#%@$%

thanx a lot guys~
now i know i'm real screwed....

thanx though really~ =)

 

[Laffctx]

Sorry to agree but I think Midnight Tech has hit the bullseye on this one.

Good luck,

Laffctx

 

[Doonz]

But here is the next question.....

Y do you want to go back to FAT 16 there is NO advantge to it and FAT 16 and FAT 32 are compatable...so why would you go back...

or are we talking FAT32 and NTFS

 

[edwinchang]

the reason i wanna go back to FAT16

The main reason i wanna go back to FAT16 is to retrieve my old data on my old HD....
my new HD in my new comp is in a format of FAT32... <-- this i'm pretty sure...

now.. i wanna transfer my old data in the OLD HD to the NEW HD... but when i plug the HD as a primary slave... the comp says that my D and E drives are corrupted (i partitioned my old HD to 2 drives)

so i guess there r 2 possibilities
1. the HD format does not match
2. the OS was different....

for the 2nd one... i think the possibility is pretty low.. cuz my frnd, who uses win98 in Chinese, says it's fine that u can transfer data to and from different OS. (btw, my new OS in the new comp is win2000 ENGLISH, and the old OS in the old comp is Chinese win98... sorry i'm a FOB... lol) And he's done it before....

so i guess the main problem is more likely to be the first possibility. I wasn't exactly sure wut the HD format is on the old HD, but i believe it's either FAT16 or FAT32. But then again, if it's FAT32, then the data should be compatible on either OS. That's why I turned the direction of my problem to the format....

Anywayz, I lost nearly 80% of the files on the HD... but i did manage to save a few of them... (btw... i formatted my comp again after a while i used win 2000, and I am currently using win98 Chinese again.) Same message--> the selected files seem to be corrupted or not valid, etc... jumps out again even i use EXACTLY the same OS as the old comp...

one interesting note is that back at the time when i was using win 2000, and after i plugged the old HD as the primary slave on the new comp.. the OS says that one of the drives need to be checked for consistency, and I LET IT CHECK D AND E DRIVES ON THE OLD HD!! <-- not sure if it matters!?!?

anywayz... my life is back to normal now... after a few disasters and Pissing-off from my sis... but i would really like to know the cause behind all this... to increase my knowledge database... and know how to solve this problem in the future, if by any chance i encouter it again~

thanx a lot for reading this thing guys... my hands r gettin tweaked
=)