Help, I somehow formatted my main hard drive to NTFS and can't access anything

[Studenttech1]

So this is why I was looking for a computer to practice on...lol

I was trying to do an exercise. Where I click on my computer then click on properties then click on check for disk errors and such, and I checked both boxes for checking and fixing the errors, it was running, then my ex husband came over, and I cancelled it. I came back about an hour later and most of my documents are gone, and only the 2 additional hard drives I have I can access. When I click on my main Hard drive it has under it NTFS. When I double click it, it says F:\ is not accessible. Access is denied.

What the hell did i do? how do I undo this?

 

[Studenttech1]

Looks like I have totally wiped it..

 

[Studenttech1]

Should I do a system restore?

 

[Frosty is a Snowman]

I don't think system restore won't fix this type of issue.

You might need to right click on the drive and go tot he security tab and set ownership of the drive and all subfolders to your username and/or the administrator.
you may need to do this in safe mode

I would also consider installing some data recovery software, and try to recover all the files you need from the drive.
Then format it, and copy the files back.

 

[Studenttech1]

Ok, I shut my computer down. Gave it a few minutes, and started it back up again, and the harddrive is showing as normal now. Now I can access it and it no longer says NTFS underneath of it. Looks like all my programs are running. Still trying to figure out what the hell I did. I was doing a Lab homework assignment. Should have been simple. I wonder if by stopping/canceling the run disk for errors/check disk for errors was attempting to reformat?

 

[Frosty is a Snowman]

When you start some system processes, such as the one you did, it can lock out the drive, as it is performing a critical service and does not want you to use the drive while it performs the task.
The system must have just held on to the drive even after you had stopped the process.
Restarting it must have just released the drive again.

 

[carnageX]

Ok, I shut my computer down. Gave it a few minutes, and started it back up again, and the harddrive is showing as normal now. Now I can access it and it no longer says NTFS underneath of it. Looks like all my programs are running. Still trying to figure out what the hell I did. I was doing a Lab homework assignment. Should have been simple. I wonder if by stopping/canceling the run disk for errors/check disk for errors was attempting to reformat?

A chkdsk doesn't format a drive. It attempts to repair errors. If it was repairing errors, or just scanning the drive, and suddenly cancelling the operation can wreak havoc on the drive.

I would suggest running it again to make sure that the drive is in proper order. Make sure nobody shuts it off this time though .

 

[Studenttech1]

A chkdsk doesn't format a drive. It attempts to repair errors. If it was repairing errors, or just scanning the drive, and suddenly cancelling the operation can wreak havoc on the drive.

I would suggest running it again to make sure that the drive is in proper order. Make sure nobody shuts it off this time though .

Ah thanks, I was just gonna ask that. Since it was in the midst of checking the hard disk for errors, and possibly fixing them, I could have messed up my hard disk without knowing it by suddenly hitting cancel before it was finished.

I will run it again tonight when I go to bed. I will let you all know what the results are. Thanks again!

 

[sPlAtOiD]

True enough I hit my power plug with the vacuum cleaner once whiledoing defrag and I lost everything. Had to run a data restore program and only got back about half my stuff.