Partiton Type

[shinigami]

On my 2nd hard drive, the partiton type got changed to an "unknown" type (that is what system commander and some dos commands have told me). Becuase of its partition type, i am unable to access any of the information on the drive. I need to change it back to NTFS or even FAT32 would be fine. I know it is possible to go from FAT32 to NTFS but is there a way for me to go from "unknown" to one of those two types WITHOUT formatting the drive? There is a lot of important and critical data that i need off of that drive. I am sure it is not a physical problem with the drive or cables or power supply or any thing of that nature. Please i HOPE some one will be able to help me. Thank you soooooo much in advanced!

[chris000001]

can you see the drive in computer management (im assuming you are using windows XP?)

[shinigami]

yes i can see it in the comp. management and i can see it in my computer but when i click on it, it says that i need to format it...and i am using XP Pro

[Zefram]

If your partition is screwed, then the data inside are gone..............
If its 'unknown', that might indicates that the whole File System (FAT, NTFS) is gone, and presumeably the data inside is rendered useless and unaccessible...

[therealwesty]

I agree with Zefram here. Once the partition has been tagged an unknown it means the OS or drive software can't determine what file system is being used, or if there even is one. Your best hope at this point my be some recovery software like Ontrack EasyRecovery. You are going to have to format that drive before you can use it again, the recovery software will just try to extract some of the data to one of your other volumes.

[Zefram]

And if you're planning to use any recovery software, make sure you done it ASAP, the longer you wait, the longer the data inside will be wiped out...........
Recovery software will try to extract any remnants of data on the HDD. I'm sure it wont recover all of your data, but it still worth trying :D

[shinigami]

well i coppied the partition over to a different drive and then reformatted the old one and the drive seems to be working fine. So any tips on recovery software? I've tried Search and Recover but that program kinda really sucks...any other suggestions? therealwesty suggested Ontrack...anyone else with some suggestions? PLEASE! heh thank you all for the help

[chris000001]

ive used ontrack a few times...it works pretty good

[shinigami]

okay i'll try OnTrack...any1 else got any ideas?