I've lost everything !!!

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Ironside82

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Yesterday the bootloader of my XP Home went missing. I tried to repair it but had no luck.
I installed XP home back onto another harddrive but when i try to find the data on the other hard drive there is nothing there.. no files can be found.
The drive status says that there is 140GB of data on there.. which is about right. Is there any sort of recovery that i can do to get my data back.
Its soo important. i've been working on stuff on it for months now and it's all gone.
I'd be so grateful if anyone could help me here.

Thanks

James
 
That's weird. So you checked the drive and it said that there were 140GB occupied, and no files or folders on the disk?
 
Can you get to Windows,is this where you are asking from or a computer you seem to know how to handle?
What drives does My Computer list ? Can you read them ?
Are your drives and jumpers all set properly ?
What is a bootloader? don't you just push the power button to start your computer ?
 
A boot loder is what is used to boot into windows. to be specific the file that went missing was the NLTDR.
I am currently runnning windows on a smaller 60gb hard drive. Slaved is the 160gb (the one that doesn't work anymore) which in my computer shows to be 140gb full yet it appears that the drive is totally empty of files :s
 
have u tried any data recovery tool on it yet ... ??

What filesystem does it show up as in any partion manager
 
i have had a similar prob a few times in the past with nt loader. you may have removed it while uninstalling a program, easy to fix though.
if you have the xp home disc use the automatic recovery console, boot from the cd and ignore the first offer to repair an installation, press enter instead to enter xp setup. on the setup welcome screen you're asked again if you want to repair a win xp installation, simply highlight the installation on the hdd with the prob and press "R" and the program automatically runs reinstalling any essential or missing files etc without affecting your settings. takes about the same length of time it takes to do a full install, most any prob with the operating system can be solved using the repair console. never used it but if you press "R" at first asking you go into c prompt, you can locate and add the file there if you prefer. its easier to let the recovery prog sort things out for you.

hope this helps.
 
Knoppix now supports NTFS so you could network the computers and transfer the data to the good PC till the other is repaired. My 2¢.
 
Quick question, but in the Disk Manager in XP, what does the partition state say?

If it reads as unallocated there, then well, you're screwed. If it says Healthy - then you may be able to mess around with it a little bit.

The Knoppix idea is good, as long as the drive that you're copying to is Fat32 Formatted.
 
I would think you could use partion magic and partion it to save your info and duel boot it a fresh OC.
 
Ironside....The same thing happened to me (although not the loader). What you have to do is to slave your drive containing the 140GB of data which amounts to a few screws and changing the jumper settings to the slave position and reinstalling the drive.
Go by the jumper settings on the case of the drive itself as opposed to anything in a book or manual.

Now boot your computer up and when you see the blue screen hit the F8 key a few times (if you miss it just boot again). This will bring you to a screen giving you start options, you select to start in "SAFE MODE" . When your login comes up you will want to log in as "ADMINISTRATOR" now we go to work!

Your folders will appear as "Empty" when you mouse over but they are not. You need to right click the folder and then click "properties" this will bring up a panel with several tabs, click the one entitled "security" You will notice a group of option boxes the first one says "full control" it should be empty and probably grayed out so you cannot click a check in it. At this point you click the button marked "ADD" and at the next panel in the empty block you type the word "Administrator" then click OK now if the box marked "full control is not grayed out click inside it. This populates all permission blocks below it. You may have to click out of the panel completely and right click "properties" again then "security" to make that "full control" box available (not grayed out)! Now the first thing crossing you mind is "damn do I have to do this for 2000 folders? The answer is "no" since you may highlight groups of folders and click through the same method I mentioned. You can do this with individual files also however if files or folders are not of the same type it will not give you the "security" tab when you click properties. Do not worry just figure out which files or folders are not of the same type or if you done know just reduce the number you have selected until you do get the "security" tab when you right click "properties"

If you have problems my email is wun4@hotmail.com and I did enable Private Msg although I just registered and have never used it. Above all dont give up and format your drive as some have done, that data is there and you can "reown" it, I salvaged
a huge GB volume just a short time ago !
Good Luck !
 
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