lost FAT

[shiz]

Win XP
P4
1.7 Ghz
512 RAM

old hard drive: 8 GB

new hard drive: 80 gb

installed a new hard drive. AFTER install I tried to retrieve my files from the old hard drive as a slave drive. Then I tried USB, and also re-installed it as primary drive. It will not boot or read any of the OLD HD. I think I lost my FAT Table or File Allocation Table. I tried a free File restore program downloaded from online but still no luck.

anyone?

EDIT:
No it did not boot when I made it the primary drive. I even tried to see it by maiking it a secondary on a Win98 machine. Also tried to boot from a LINUX CD and see if that would "see" it. I can see the drive letter assigned to it either by making it a secondary drive or by attaching with USB-IDE cable, and it will open a window, but I can't see anything ON the drive. I can get a C: prompt in DOS, but still no files or directories.

I really FEEL like the files are still there--but maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Thanks so much for your advice so far...

 

[jeremy]

usally on a data loss situation you should never try to boot from it (if it have only 1 partition) cuz that might overwrite the data that could have been recovered , so your lucky it didnt boot

i assume that by "tried" usb you mean you tried a usb-->ide adapter or puted it in an external enclosure , the bios identifies it right?

theres no good *free* data recovery program , i recommend
easy recovery pro/r-studio/file scavenger

edit you mean it doesnt boot litterly or it does but it doesnt go well? warez monster might have a point

 

[Osiris]

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421