Dynamic Disk Woes - help me recover my data!

[Simon]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it - one
Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub boot
loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.

I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat install
partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data from
her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of her
digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all relevant
data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
malware that infested the original installation.

So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my install
was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept in
my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the disk
to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
install resided.

The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the recovered
data back again.

Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting, but I
don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said that
it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course, because I
hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.

I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about what
I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I had
no idea how bad that would be.

Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by my
friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the data
I'm still intent on recovering.

I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need to
do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so does
this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry that
I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation I
guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any change
that low level without some confirmation.

Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

You're a real technician - aren't you?

NOT!

"Simon" wrote:

> Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it - one
> Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub boot
> loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.
>
> I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat install
> partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
> software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data from
> her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of her
> digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all relevant
> data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
> malware that infested the original installation.
>
> So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my install
> was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept in
> my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
> reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the disk
> to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
> install resided.
>
> The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the recovered
> data back again.
>
> Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting, but I
> don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said that
> it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course, because I
> hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.
>
> I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about what
> I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I had
> no idea how bad that would be.
>
> Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by my
> friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
> Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
> option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the data
> I'm still intent on recovering.
>
> I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need to
> do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so does
> this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry that
> I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
> there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation I
> guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any change
> that low level without some confirmation.
>
> Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
> some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

"Simon" <Simon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FCF490CE-E881-4551-A40A-CDAEFFFA2CEA@microsoft.com...
> Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it -
> one
> Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub
> boot
> loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.
>
> I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat
> install
> partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
> software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data
> from
> her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of
> her
> digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all
> relevant
> data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
> malware that infested the original installation.
>
> So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my
> install
> was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept
> in
> my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
> reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the
> disk
> to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
> install resided.
>
> The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the
> recovered
> data back again.
>
> Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting, but
> I
> don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said
> that
> it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course, because
> I
> hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.
>
> I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about
> what
> I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I
> had
> no idea how bad that would be.
>
> Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by
> my
> friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
> Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
> option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the
> data
> I'm still intent on recovering.
>
> I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need to
> do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so does
> this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry
> that
> I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
> there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation
> I
> guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any
> change
> that low level without some confirmation.
>
> Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
> some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!


Take the drive out, put it in a working computer, salvage the data, then
delete the partitions and start over. Anything you do at this point is
likely to make it all worse than it is now, considering how well it's gone
so far.

On the other hand, you say that you reloaded XP to where it was originally,
so you might have already lost the data that was there, depending on how you
"reloaded."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

He can't rally do that. Send it in to a data recovery place if you
really have to or you can try some data recovery software. Please also
keep your posts to one thread. If you need a better idea, post to the
original post as it makes it easier for us to follow.

-----
Nathan McNulty

D.Currie wrote:
> "Simon" <Simon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:FCF490CE-E881-4551-A40A-CDAEFFFA2CEA@microsoft.com...
>
>>Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it -
>>one
>>Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub
>>boot
>>loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.
>>
>>I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat
>>install
>>partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
>>software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data
>>from
>>her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of
>>her
>>digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all
>>relevant
>>data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
>>malware that infested the original installation.
>>
>>So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my
>>install
>>was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept
>>in
>>my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
>>reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the
>>disk
>>to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
>>install resided.
>>
>>The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the
>>recovered
>>data back again.
>>
>>Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting, but
>>I
>>don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said
>>that
>>it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course, because
>>I
>>hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.
>>
>>I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about
>>what
>>I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I
>>had
>>no idea how bad that would be.
>>
>>Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by
>>my
>>friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
>>Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
>>option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the
>>data
>>I'm still intent on recovering.
>>
>>I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need to
>>do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so does
>>this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry
>>that
>>I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
>>there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation
>>I
>>guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any
>>change
>>that low level without some confirmation.
>>
>>Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
>>some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!
>
>
>
> Take the drive out, put it in a working computer, salvage the data, then
> delete the partitions and start over. Anything you do at this point is
> likely to make it all worse than it is now, considering how well it's gone
> so far.
>
> On the other hand, you say that you reloaded XP to where it was originally,
> so you might have already lost the data that was there, depending on how you
> "reloaded."
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

He can't do what and why? (if you're responding to my post)

Just curious.

Then again, I didn't start a new thread, so maybe you're not responding to
me.


"Nathan McNulty" <newsgroups@msn.com> wrote in message
news:exIMFVYwEHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> He can't rally do that. Send it in to a data recovery place if you really
> have to or you can try some data recovery software. Please also keep your
> posts to one thread. If you need a better idea, post to the original post
> as it makes it easier for us to follow.
>
> -----
> Nathan McNulty
>
> D.Currie wrote:
>> "Simon" <Simon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:FCF490CE-E881-4551-A40A-CDAEFFFA2CEA@microsoft.com...
>>
>>>Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it -
>>>one
>>>Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub
>>>boot
>>>loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.
>>>
>>>I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat
>>>install
>>>partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
>>>software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data
>>>from
>>>her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of
>>>her
>>>digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all
>>>relevant
>>>data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
>>>malware that infested the original installation.
>>>
>>>So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my
>>>install
>>>was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept
>>>in
>>>my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
>>>reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the
>>>disk
>>>to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
>>>install resided.
>>>
>>>The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the
>>>recovered
>>>data back again.
>>>
>>>Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting,
>>>but I
>>>don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said
>>>that
>>>it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course,
>>>because I
>>>hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.
>>>
>>>I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about
>>>what
>>>I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I
>>>had
>>>no idea how bad that would be.
>>>
>>>Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by
>>>my
>>>friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
>>>Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
>>>option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the
>>>data
>>>I'm still intent on recovering.
>>>
>>>I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need
>>>to
>>>do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so
>>>does
>>>this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry
>>>that
>>>I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
>>>there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation
>>>I
>>>guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any
>>>change
>>>that low level without some confirmation.
>>>
>>>Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
>>>some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!
>>
>>
>>
>> Take the drive out, put it in a working computer, salvage the data, then
>> delete the partitions and start over. Anything you do at this point is
>> likely to make it all worse than it is now, considering how well it's
>> gone so far.
>>
>> On the other hand, you say that you reloaded XP to where it was
>> originally, so you might have already lost the data that was there,
>> depending on how you "reloaded."

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

I was saying he can't just put the drive in another computer and pull
data from it because he already overwrote the volume where the files he
wants to recover are, he has changed the boot record, and he has
converted the disk to dynamic.

He would need a computer running XP Pro to even see the dynamic volume.
Even if he is able to mount the volumes, there would be no data to
recover since he overwrote the volume where the orignal install with the
files he wants to recover.

He simply needs to send this thing into a data recovery place before he
destroys anymore data. Every bit he writes to that drive erases more
data that could potentially be recovered

-----
Nathan McNulty

D.Currie wrote:
> He can't do what and why? (if you're responding to my post)
>
> Just curious.
>
> Then again, I didn't start a new thread, so maybe you're not responding to
> me.
>
>
> "Nathan McNulty" <newsgroups@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:exIMFVYwEHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>
>>He can't rally do that. Send it in to a data recovery place if you really
>>have to or you can try some data recovery software. Please also keep your
>>posts to one thread. If you need a better idea, post to the original post
>>as it makes it easier for us to follow.
>>
>>-----
>>Nathan McNulty
>>
>>D.Currie wrote:
>>
>>>"Simon" <Simon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>>>news:FCF490CE-E881-4551-A40A-CDAEFFFA2CEA@microsoft.com...
>>>
>>>
>>>>Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it -
>>>>one
>>>>Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub
>>>>boot
>>>>loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.
>>>>
>>>>I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat
>>>>install
>>>>partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
>>>>software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data
>>>>from
>>>>her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of
>>>>her
>>>>digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all
>>>>relevant
>>>>data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
>>>>malware that infested the original installation.
>>>>
>>>>So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my
>>>>install
>>>>was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept
>>>>in
>>>>my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
>>>>reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the
>>>>disk
>>>>to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
>>>>install resided.
>>>>
>>>>The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the
>>>>recovered
>>>>data back again.
>>>>
>>>>Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting,
>>>>but I
>>>>don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said
>>>>that
>>>>it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course,
>>>>because I
>>>>hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.
>>>>
>>>>I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about
>>>>what
>>>>I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I
>>>>had
>>>>no idea how bad that would be.
>>>>
>>>>Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by
>>>>my
>>>>friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
>>>>Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
>>>>option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the
>>>>data
>>>>I'm still intent on recovering.
>>>>
>>>>I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need
>>>>to
>>>>do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so
>>>>does
>>>>this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry
>>>>that
>>>>I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
>>>>there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation
>>>>I
>>>>guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any
>>>>change
>>>>that low level without some confirmation.
>>>>
>>>>Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
>>>>some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Take the drive out, put it in a working computer, salvage the data, then
>>>delete the partitions and start over. Anything you do at this point is
>>>likely to make it all worse than it is now, considering how well it's
>>>gone so far.
>>>
>>>On the other hand, you say that you reloaded XP to where it was
>>>originally, so you might have already lost the data that was there,
>>>depending on how you "reloaded."
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

"Nathan McNulty" <newsgroups@msn.com> wrote in message
news:eOaQzDkwEHA.3716@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>I was saying he can't just put the drive in another computer and pull data
>from it because he already overwrote the volume where the files he wants to
>recover are, he has changed the boot record, and he has converted the disk
>to dynamic.

Ah, ok. Someone else had mentioned that it wasn't possible for him to have
actually converted the disk to dynamic, so I was thinking that maybe he just
managed to mess things up some other way and that another computer might be
able to read the drive or run recovery software on it. And if it wasn't
possible for the drive to have been converted to dynamic, maybe he didn't
actually accomplish some of the other things he attempted, so perhaps the
drive isn't as unrecoverable as it seems. At this point, all we know for
sure is that it doesn't boot.

>
> He would need a computer running XP Pro to even see the dynamic volume.
> Even if he is able to mount the volumes, there would be no data to recover
> since he overwrote the volume where the orignal install with the files he
> wants to recover.
>
> He simply needs to send this thing into a data recovery place before he
> destroys anymore data. Every bit he writes to that drive erases more data
> that could potentially be recovered


That would be the safest thing to do, of course, but most people find that
their precious data really ins't worth what a data recovery company will
charge. If that's the case, he's got nothing to lose by messing with it a
bit more. I just figured that the data would be marginally safer if he had
the drive in a working computer and he wasn't using all sorts of methods to
get it to boot. At least he's not writing to the drive.

While it's a slim chance, there's a chance that the data is all still there,
he just can get to it because he can't boot. If he puts the drive in another
computer, he might be able to recover some of it, or he'll know for sure
that it's data recovery time. Putting the drive into another computer
shouldn't harm it any more than it already has been, so there's not much
risk in giving it a try.

Also, there are some pretty decent data recovery programs; I even found one
that could extract data from drives that the OS didn't recognize. I had
another one that saw 3 layers of OSs and data that had been on a drive,
overwriting each other. Not all of it was recoverable, but much of it was,
from any of the 3 layers. If all he really did was format the drive or
delete the partition, the data is still there and it's pretty accessible
with the right tools.

But I agree, every new process makes it a little harder to get at the data,
if the process writes to the drive.


>
> -----
> Nathan McNulty
>
> D.Currie wrote:
>> He can't do what and why? (if you're responding to my post)
>>
>> Just curious.
>>
>> Then again, I didn't start a new thread, so maybe you're not responding
>> to me.
>>
>>
>> "Nathan McNulty" <newsgroups@msn.com> wrote in message
>> news:exIMFVYwEHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>>
>>>He can't rally do that. Send it in to a data recovery place if you
>>>really have to or you can try some data recovery software. Please also
>>>keep your posts to one thread. If you need a better idea, post to the
>>>original post as it makes it easier for us to follow.
>>>
>>>-----
>>>Nathan McNulty
>>>
>>>D.Currie wrote:
>>>
>>>>"Simon" <Simon@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>>>>news:FCF490CE-E881-4551-A40A-CDAEFFFA2CEA@microsoft.com...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it -
>>>>>one
>>>>>Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the
>>>>>Grub boot
>>>>>loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.
>>>>>
>>>>>I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat
>>>>>install
>>>>>partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
>>>>>software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data
>>>>>from
>>>>>her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all
>>>>>of her
>>>>>digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all
>>>>>relevant
>>>>>data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses
>>>>>and
>>>>>malware that infested the original installation.
>>>>>
>>>>>So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my
>>>>>install
>>>>>was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I
>>>>>kept in
>>>>>my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
>>>>>reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert
>>>>>the disk
>>>>>to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
>>>>>install resided.
>>>>>
>>>>>The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the
>>>>>recovered
>>>>>data back again.
>>>>>
>>>>>Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting,
>>>>>but I
>>>>>don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said
>>>>>that
>>>>>it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course,
>>>>>because I
>>>>>hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't
>>>>>boot.
>>>>>
>>>>>I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about
>>>>>what
>>>>>I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I
>>>>>had
>>>>>no idea how bad that would be.
>>>>>
>>>>>Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally
>>>>>by my
>>>>>friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as
>>>>>Dynamic
>>>>>Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The
>>>>>only
>>>>>option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete
>>>>>the data
>>>>>I'm still intent on recovering.
>>>>>
>>>>>I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need
>>>>>to
>>>>>do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so
>>>>>does
>>>>>this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry
>>>>>that
>>>>>I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever
>>>>>is
>>>>>there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the
>>>>>situation I
>>>>>guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any
>>>>>change
>>>>>that low level without some confirmation.
>>>>>
>>>>>Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give
>>>>>me
>>>>>some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Take the drive out, put it in a working computer, salvage the data, then
>>>>delete the partitions and start over. Anything you do at this point is
>>>>likely to make it all worse than it is now, considering how well it's
>>>>gone so far.
>>>>
>>>>On the other hand, you say that you reloaded XP to where it was
>>>>originally, so you might have already lost the data that was there,
>>>>depending on how you "reloaded."
>>
>>