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NTFS....suddenly....RAW? please help

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4 replies

by liquidsnake

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I don't know if any of you have had this problem previously, but, I have recently formatted my computer and reinstalled the operating system (which is a win2k upgrade, so i had to install win98, then win2k pro) I'm in win2k Pro right now. I had a hard drive that had all the files i wanted to back up (my CD burner's messed up, getting new one next week) and i completely removed it, stored it in a different room before formatting at all. I formatted, reinstall the OS, all that good stuff, reinstalled the hard drive, booted up fine, went to access files, and "would you like to format this drive" prompt came up. Tried to change file system back to NTFS (friend's suggestion) came up with "file system is in RAW format" so, rebuilt my MBR, didn'tdo anything. I'm really at a loss here! I have no clue as what I can do that is left. Thanks for any help available!

4 replies

by rickydoo

I've been in the business (off and on) since DOS 3 was all the rage :) and I don't remember ever hearing RAW format before, except in print spooling.
Why did you have to reformat in the first place? Did you have a virus? If so, it followed you onthat backup drive. Are both drives in NTFS format?
I'll admit I'm at a bit of a loss here, as I've been mostly out of the business about 4 years and haven't seen an OS newer than XP, so it might be MS's new name for FAT or unformatted or something.
If you have Partition Magic, it might at least tell you if the partition(s) are still there.
Anybody else got a clue?

by lordinfidel

Instead of installing 98 first and then upgrading,

Why not just put the 2K cd in, boot of the cd, blow away any partitions there, let it format NTFS and install.

I have never heard of or have seen a 2k upgrade cd before. It only comes as a full version, but will prompt you to upgrade if it detects another upgradle OS.

I am not sure how you "CHANGED" an apparently unformatted drive back to NTFS, I would be interested in the steps you took.

My theory would be that the drive was initially corrupt and when you tried to access it, the OS could not. If you ran the convert utility on an undetectable filesytem, then that is probably where the issue is. In other words, all data on that drive is gone.

by zar

Well you cvan also place ther drive as a slave drive on another systems with win 2K and win98 to see if you can acces the data, if anything else Partition magic will do the trick, try to get version 8 it's pretty good

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