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Hard Drive not recognizing in Windows XP

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6 replies

by ghost11542

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I have a external hard drive that i am trying to recover but it every time i hook up the usb 2.0 the windows xp wants to format it to ntfs. I don't want to format it right now becuase their is importtant files in the external hard drive. While i used the hard disk investigator the file system is in fat16 before that it was working fine with windows xp. Is their any way or software to recover the files and folders?

6 replies

by w2ktechman

seeing the file allocation table correctly. If this is the case, do not use Win XP to try to recover the data. If you have a 95/98 system it may see it fine, but it might be best to have the disc checked for errors (possible corrupt) before doing anything else.
A Linux cd (live disto)may be able to see and get your files as well. Other than that, the tools can start getting expensive with no guarantee of recovery.

If the file system is damaged, it might be best to send it out to a data recovery place. There are quite a few of them, and it should not be really expensive IF it is on fat16.

by why me worry?

but if the hard disk itself is shot and the FAT table and partition tables are shot, then Windows XP will report that the media isn't formatted and will try to format it. Remove the drive from its USB case and try hooking it up directly to the motherboard of your XP machine. If it still can't read the drive, then you have a corrupted hard drive and will require 3rd party utilities to fix it. Norton Utilities disk doctor usually works very well on FAT 16 and FAT 32 file systems.

by webstuff

You can try downloading a fat32/ntfs partition reader. It 'boots up" within windows and opens the drive ina win98 kinda view. It helped me once or twice.

by cecilmash2000

Actualy there is ,incase you dont manage any other way just reformat it and use Easy recovery software to recover formated files.you can download it online but let that be your last very last option

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