Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)
This system was upgraded to Windows XP Home edition, from 98, when the
owner called with this problem, I figgured that it was the typical
Q314057 problem... However. I don;t think so anymore.
My reasons...
1. The upgrade was successfull, it worked for several days and the
owners were highly pleased with the results.
2. Before the problem reared it's ugly head, the owner had read email,
then closed outlook express and the desktop was all "messed up" so they
restarted the system. that's when the error started.
3. The full error never shows on the screen, just NTLDR is Missing, and
a flashing curser. no "press any key to restart" and the HD access
light is on steady... for over 24hrs it was left like this.
When I booted the system using the XP CD and got to the recovery
console, I was horrorfied to find that there were no files to be found
on the drive, BUT more then 7gb of space being used by somthing. This
is a 70+ GB drive partitioned into to relatively equal parts.
I Used a Win98 Boot disk and went into Fdisk to examine the partitions,
it listed the two partitions as expect however I was suprised to find
that they were FAT32 {I diden't realise that XP would install on
Fat32...but I guess you learn somthing every day}
I tried putting the drive into a working XP system to see if I could
read the contens that way, same thing, two roughly equal partitions,
one empty and unused, the other "empty" but 7GB used.
I tried using a freeware {Disk Investigator} to try to read the raw
data from some of the used clusters and did find some data, but why is
it not visiable to the system, as either files or folders?}
I suspect a rather nasty virus that the user got when reading that last
email session...that's then the troubles seemed to manifest. but
perhaps I am missing somthing? I invite suggestions and insight on this
matter. and is there any idea wf what I can do to recover the data?
Cheers!
Eric Malain
This system was upgraded to Windows XP Home edition, from 98, when the
owner called with this problem, I figgured that it was the typical
Q314057 problem... However. I don;t think so anymore.
My reasons...
1. The upgrade was successfull, it worked for several days and the
owners were highly pleased with the results.
2. Before the problem reared it's ugly head, the owner had read email,
then closed outlook express and the desktop was all "messed up" so they
restarted the system. that's when the error started.
3. The full error never shows on the screen, just NTLDR is Missing, and
a flashing curser. no "press any key to restart" and the HD access
light is on steady... for over 24hrs it was left like this.
When I booted the system using the XP CD and got to the recovery
console, I was horrorfied to find that there were no files to be found
on the drive, BUT more then 7gb of space being used by somthing. This
is a 70+ GB drive partitioned into to relatively equal parts.
I Used a Win98 Boot disk and went into Fdisk to examine the partitions,
it listed the two partitions as expect however I was suprised to find
that they were FAT32 {I diden't realise that XP would install on
Fat32...but I guess you learn somthing every day}
I tried putting the drive into a working XP system to see if I could
read the contens that way, same thing, two roughly equal partitions,
one empty and unused, the other "empty" but 7GB used.
I tried using a freeware {Disk Investigator} to try to read the raw
data from some of the used clusters and did find some data, but why is
it not visiable to the system, as either files or folders?}
I suspect a rather nasty virus that the user got when reading that last
email session...that's then the troubles seemed to manifest. but
perhaps I am missing somthing? I invite suggestions and insight on this
matter. and is there any idea wf what I can do to recover the data?
Cheers!
Eric Malain
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