Need help recovering data

VashX

n00b
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
28
Recently, I have installed Ubuntu Linux and tried for a dual boot with Windows XP but then I wasn't able to boot into Windows. After asking a lot of questions, I've found out that the NTFS partition became corrupt. I have absolutely no idea, and for the heck of it, I ran fixboot and fixmbr with my Windows XP Home installation CD. To my unamazement, the NTFS partition converted to FAT16.
So my question is: Can I somehow recover my data? Or do I have to completely reformat?
My problem is on a laptop harddrive so I can't do anything with floppies.
Do you think it's possible to put my laptop harddrive into an external enclosure and hook it up to my desktop and somehow recover it?
 
I know people have recommended those programs in here, but they aren't the ones to use. You use FDISK /MBR to recover a boot record. As far as recovering it, there are adapters available that will allow you to connect your laptop HDD to your PC. You'll just have to do a quick search for them.
 
Well, I don't think fdisk /mbr would do a thing since it's now FAT16, right? I've tried fdisk /mbr with my 98se when i couldn't find my XP cd and it didn't work. Then i did fixmbr and it didn't work either. So now, my only hope is to recover the data.
Somebody linked me to this so I'll try buying that. And somebody else linked me to this for data recovery, so I'll try that out once I get the converter.
Hope this works. :|
 
FDISK /MBR is in XP. You run it from the Recovery Console. I don't know if it will help you now though. Even if it doesn't, though, you know for next time.
 
Linux has ruined more Windows installs than I care to go into.

Anyway, the proper method to "fix" a Linux bootloader trashing your ability to boot Windows is the Recovery Console using two specific commands in a specific order.

Boot off your XP CD and choose Recovery Console, not Repair Installation. They're two different options.

Once you get the Recovery Console running it's going to ask you to choose the XP install you need to "fix" so choose the proper number. It will then require that you log into the Admin account for that installation of XP. Log in and at the next prompt you should see:

C:\Windows (or whatever drive you chose to install Windows on)

Type the following command and press Enter:

fixmbr

That will restore the factory MBR to the hard drive, eradicating any presence of Linux code or anything at all really.

Then type the following command and press Enter:

fixboot

That's it. Pop out your XP CD and reboot. It *should* take you right into your Windows XP installation. Fdisk /mbr from a 9x CD does the same thing that fixmbr does from the Recovery Console; that aspect of fdisk has never changed regardless of the filesystem on the hard drive. The fdisk /mbr command only affects the Master Boot Record which is free of file systems technically as they are commonly used and understood.

But it's the fixboot command that is most important. That restores the boot.ini file and modifies the parameters to allow you to boot *and* it also modifies the MBR as a secondary step to point to the boot sector on the partition you have XP installed on - you don't necessarily have to have XP installed to C: as some people don't.

Funny thing about this: I had someone on IRC come to a #winxp support channel I hang out in and said almost the same thing: His NTFS partition was corrupted and it showed as FAT16... interesting. Same guy?

Hope this helps,
bb

ps
As far as data recovery, I recommend only one tool: EasyRecovery from Ontrack Data Recovery. It's the only one in all my years of working with PCs that has never *not* recovered data for me; in other words it's always worked flawlessly whereas other apps of a similar nature have left something behind or out, etc. YMMV however.
 
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