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General discussion

lost harddisk

Mar 13, 2004 7:57PM PST

I am a new user to XP.
I recently re-installed windows XP since explorer kept on giving me problems.
The problem now is that when i re-installed it it gave me no options to format my harddisk.
I have a Maxtor 7Y250MO. It was divided in 3 partitions. After re-installing I only have drive C: left with 13gb in total. The rest of the 237GB has completely dissapeared.
Can anyone out there help me to solve this.
Pref. A solution to recover my lost data. I know I can format everything and have it up and running again, but for some reason my back up of the 2 other drives have dissapeared aswell.
I hope to hear from someone.

Discussion is locked

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Re:lost harddisk
Mar 13, 2004 9:47PM PST

Before any work is done on any machine, a good backup of any needed files should be made off the machine to some external media. Reinstalls often go awry as you see.

You do have options:

1) Look in Computer Management to see if the other partitions are visible and their status
2) If do you see them try opening a command prompt with Start/Run/CMD and copy(some DOS-like skills are needed) whatever files you can
3) Remove the hard drive to another machine and copy from there.

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OVER 137GB hard disk + Install XP =lost harddisk
Mar 13, 2004 9:52PM PST

This is the usual formula for such a problem.

Support for over 137GB drives is in SP1. Install SP1 and hope your data comes back.

This is a known error that people are going to repeat many times.

FIX? Get a XP SP1 CD.

Bob