Very Technical Hard Drive problem. Please help!

[FlyingToaster]

I was upgrading my friends' system from ME to XP. I created a second partition to hold all the files while I formatted the other partition and installed XP. It formatted into NTFS and I started the installation. Because (I now know) the CD was damaged, the installation wouldn't finish. Unwilling to leave a useless computer. I tried reinstalling ME. Of course, it wouldn't install since the first partition was in NTFS (not FAT32).

It asks me to run Fdisk, which I do. I said "yes" to the large drive support and assigned C as the active partition for installation(D being the partition holding the files).

This is when it goes wrong.

I lauch the installation of ME.. and I only see one unpartitionned hard-drive. F#%@!!!

Where did it go? I have no idea.

I've checked the hard drive on other machines and even Partition Magic 8 sees it as one large unpartitionned disk.

Is their any hope for the data? I feel aweful about losing it all.
I was thinking.. maybe partitionning a bit of it and installing an OS. But it still wouldn't work because The rest of the disk would be seen as "unpartitionned".

I'm pretty sure the data is still there.. but how to I get to it?

Please help!

 

[khha4113]

First, you need to delete NTFS partition (it would be seen in FDisk as Non-DOS partition) as well as another partition. Then create a new one.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[FlyingToaster]

Your reply doesn't make much sens to me. However, I will remind you that I'm trying to RECOVER the data on the drive.

It use to have 3 partitions.. 1 in NTFS and 2 in FAT32.
After I used fdisk to set the first (NTFS) partition as the active partition (to install WinME on it again), it screwed up all my partition table.

Now I only see one large UNPARTITIONNED and UNFORMATED drive.

 

[khha4113]

When you FDisk to repartition it
>><b>It asks me to run Fdisk, which I do. I said "yes" to the large drive support and assigned C as the active partition for installation(D being the partition holding the files).</b><<
I assumed that you want to recover your <b>disk space</b> because FDisk would certainly erase all your existed data.
If you wanted to recover data on your FAT partitions, you shouldn't have answered <b>YES</b> when FDisk asked, but only delete NTFS partition and create a new one (also make it active). That method should have left your FAT partitions intact and you would have recovered data on them.
Run FDisk again and choose <b>NO</b> when it asks. Next, choose option <b>4</b> in its menu to see info on your HD. If you see it still has <b><font color=red>extended partition</b></font color=red> with 2 logical drives D and E (I supposed they are your FAT partitons). You still have a chance to recover them.
Delete the primary partition which was NTFS, then create a new one and make it active.

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.