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NTFS hard disk now recognized as 'RAW'

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6 replies

by darksound_

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My Windows XP was recently corrupted and my hard disk was password protected. In an effort to retrieve my old info I slaved my hard disk to a friends PC. I changed the permissions on my old, slaved drive and all was well. I then installed a secondary 250 GB slave so I could backup the data on his 'D:' (primary slave) drive, which he promised to me after I was done. Then, when I uninstalled my old drive, his primary slave was no longer present in 'My Computer'. I removed the new 250 GB drive, but his primary slave was still not visible. I did a little research and found that I could reassign the drive letter to make it visible via the disk manager and reassigned the 'D:' designation. The drive is now visible, but it says that the disk is unformatted, which is obviously not true. How can I rectify this without formatting the drive?

6 replies

by oh smeg

You will find the directions for this in the Help Files in the OS on the Computer affected by this problem.

Though it generally requires opening the Command Line Interface and typing in the CHKDSK/r on the affected HDD. The exact string will be in the help files and generally speaking you need to reboot and the repair is run on the restart.

This often accrues because the Master Boot Records are no longer identical and the computer interprets this as a unformatted HDD.

Col

by yann16

CHKDSK/r asks for a disk format (under vista or either Windows 7)...I tried testdisk and it fixed My FAT32 boot sector, and fat table (using advanced menu).
Technically, one has to use a disk or partition utility that can either diagnose and repair the boot sector (there is always a Backup copy stored). Try for instance acronis tools, getdataBack, easy Recovery, or more simply the free GNU testdisk). or if abyone still uses windows 95 or 98, do a good old fdisk /mbr ;)

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