- Joined
- Sep 8, 2002
HELP: Started install of XP and my partition tables got FUBAR'd; data might be gone
I'm in some serious hurt right now. I'm rebuilding my system with a new Mobo and CPU and using my existing SATA drive (single, non-RAID). Here's the short of the problem: Somehow the partition table (or something) has been corrupted so I can't see any of the existing partitions.
Since the drive (500gb) was previously in use, it was split four different partitions:
Part 1: NTFS <100gb reserved for XP Pro install, initially was home to my previous install of XP>
Part 2: NTFS - hidden <250gb with data which I still want/need>
Part 3: NTFS - hidden <80gb empty partition>
Part 4: other - Formatted as the Acronis Secure Zone (disk imaging software).
Everything was looking fine once I got all my new hardware in place. Then I loaded up with the XP install disk and was about to do the install when I noticed that the C:\ was being read as 130gb of unknown file format. Whereas it should have been 100gb of NTFS.
I rebooted the system without continuing the install. Booted onto my Partition Magic 8 boot disk, all my partitions where there. So I deleted Part 1 (previously working C:\) and created a new, non-formatted partition of the available space (100gb). Then I rebooted.
Windows XP setup started, I loaded the SATA drivers from my motherboard by hitting F6 when prompted. Selected the appropriate drivers and continued to the format section of the install. Again, C:\ was coming up as 130gb unknown.
I rebooted into PartMagic8 again and now all I get is an error: "PARTITION TABLE ERROR #116 FOUND." And that's it. I tried booting into the XP recovery console and ran both "fixmbr" and "fixboot" but that seems to have done nothing.
How can I restore the partitions so I can get back to installing XP while keeping my existing data on the other partitions intact? It seems like the boot sector or something got jacked (somehow), so it seems like fixing this shouldn't be a bit issue.
Please help, I don't like the way this is progressing
Thanks everyone!
I'm in some serious hurt right now. I'm rebuilding my system with a new Mobo and CPU and using my existing SATA drive (single, non-RAID). Here's the short of the problem: Somehow the partition table (or something) has been corrupted so I can't see any of the existing partitions.
Since the drive (500gb) was previously in use, it was split four different partitions:
Part 1: NTFS <100gb reserved for XP Pro install, initially was home to my previous install of XP>
Part 2: NTFS - hidden <250gb with data which I still want/need>
Part 3: NTFS - hidden <80gb empty partition>
Part 4: other - Formatted as the Acronis Secure Zone (disk imaging software).
Everything was looking fine once I got all my new hardware in place. Then I loaded up with the XP install disk and was about to do the install when I noticed that the C:\ was being read as 130gb of unknown file format. Whereas it should have been 100gb of NTFS.
I rebooted the system without continuing the install. Booted onto my Partition Magic 8 boot disk, all my partitions where there. So I deleted Part 1 (previously working C:\) and created a new, non-formatted partition of the available space (100gb). Then I rebooted.
Windows XP setup started, I loaded the SATA drivers from my motherboard by hitting F6 when prompted. Selected the appropriate drivers and continued to the format section of the install. Again, C:\ was coming up as 130gb unknown.
I rebooted into PartMagic8 again and now all I get is an error: "PARTITION TABLE ERROR #116 FOUND." And that's it. I tried booting into the XP recovery console and ran both "fixmbr" and "fixboot" but that seems to have done nothing.
How can I restore the partitions so I can get back to installing XP while keeping my existing data on the other partitions intact? It seems like the boot sector or something got jacked (somehow), so it seems like fixing this shouldn't be a bit issue.
Please help, I don't like the way this is progressing
Thanks everyone!
