I've lost my data on my HDD!

[BASSMASTER]

During the boot process when the ntldr is loaded the minifile system is run so ntldr can read file from FAT or NTFS file system. Then ntldr is able to read the boot.ini file. Ntldr run the program ntdetect.com which is use to check the hardware devices and passes this information back to the ntldr which will later be used to update the registry. Ntldr then loads ntoskrn.exe, hal.dll and the system hive(which is a portion of the registry that include hardware information that is use to load the proper device driver for the current hardware. Ntldr then passes the process over to ntoskrn.exe and the process is complete.

Thats why you can't just swapp harddrive with an OS already install on it.

I was kind of too direct about my point and not realize that you maybe able to do so If you had more then one hardware profile.

Detailing the boot process isn't much of an explanation. With Windows 9X I rarely encountered problems with swapping out drives. 2000/XP can be trickier and sometimes not worth the hassle, but by no means impossible.

 

[Law]

I'm talking about changing the harddrive to another computer, not changing two different harddrive on a single computer.

 

[Law]

In benzimm86 situation, everything should work if he had his harddrive set as slave and his friend as primary. The OS would just recognize it as another drive.

 

[CJJohnson]

LOL, You can only swap drive that have the same hardware dudes.

How do USB drives get around this?

Can you get a USB adaptor/enclosure to put your HDD in?

I thought it may have been an NTFS/FAT32(16) problem as NTFS doesn't work under Win98.

 

[Rich M]

Seems like everyone is far afield here...many are assuming ofreeb tried to boot one drive in another and then there are some of us who assumed he slaved it and then could not see it.
You can slave any drive in any other pc, as long as the main drive is master.
I am just wondering if one unit had Fat 32 and the other ntfs, as you know Fat 32 cannot read NTFS.

 

[Law]

Hi,

I took out a hard drive from a computer and when I put it on another one everything was gone! I think it is down to the file system that may be corrupted.

What can I do to recover my 40 GB of songs?

Ofreeb

Sounds like he put a harddrive with a working OS into another computer.

 

[CJJohnson]

As far as I know, XP can run on and read both NTFS and FAT 32. However, Win 98 can run on and read Fat 32 but not NTFS.

 

[CJJohnson]

But surely Law, the worst that would do is try to load all new drivers and ask to be re-authenticated. I don't think that would trash a HDD structure full stop. Still not a good idea though.

 

[Law]

your right cj it would not trash the whole system but only corrupt the registry. I believe Ofreeb could still recover his data since it might still reside on the harddrive. See a specialist who can do it for you

 

[CJJohnson]

I'm wondering if you could attach it to a working XP system (USB or IDE) and, as long as it shows up in My Computer, run disk Error-checking on that drive and see what Windows comes up with, might even save it free of charge.