Re: Before I cry please help.


Thanks Shenan, here is the info requested;

(C:)Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (System) 74.49GB 70.12GB 94% No 0%
(D:)Partition Basic NTFS Healthy 298.09GB 297.47GB 99% No 0%
(E:)Partition Basic FAT Healthy 39MB 32MB 82% No 0%

Total Drives = 2 (Disk 0 and Disk 1)

Yes - two physical drives - Disk 0 80GB and Disk 1 320GB (I think this is the correct size).

I didn't leave the install process at any time - I saw the format / yellow line reach 100%

The system is still crashing (this why I wanted a clean install in the first place).

UPDATE

My situation is going from bad to worse.

After running Windows Memory Tester - my brand new 1GB RAM is failing
at two points (left it running overnight).

Phoned Crucial UK this afternoon - they are sending out a new stick.

I cannot continue or even attempt to download your suggestion, because system
crashes ever 2 minutes or so.

When I have a stable XP again - I will download what you said, and try to sort
out the OLD drive G.

One big lesson learnt - I will never leave any other drives in a system while XP install or Repair.

I know I haven't done anything wrong and find it outrageous that this could possibly happen.

Thanks to everyone who has helped so far.

I will come back and report next week.


"Shenan Stanley" <newshelper@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:el7EdPfAIHA.1164@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Stephen wrote:
KEN - I SENT THE FOLLOWING ABOUT 2 HOURS AGO - IT IS NOT SHOWING -
SO SENT AGAIN

The entire thread:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/dgbrowser/en-us/default.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support&tid=160f5c78-c1a1-4ffb-91a5-aba6ca3959de&cat=en-us-technet-winxp&lang=en&cr=US&sloc=en-us&m=1&p=1

You are giving too much information at this point. It's hard to sift through.

Essentially - what we *must* know is that you have two physical hard disk drives:
One 80GB and one 320GB. Formatted (usable size) will be less - thus your numbers.

Previously you supposedly copied a LOT of data to the 320GB drive (which had one partition on it) in preparation for some sort of installation/repair on the other drive (the 80GB) which was your boot/system drive.

Drive letters are irrelevant at this time.

You performed your clean install and when it got to the point where it asked you 'which partition to install Windows XP upon' - you chose the 80GB hard disk drive and its single partition, deleted said partition, created a new partition and formatted it. You *watched* it format ~75GB - no more?

You continued the install and you believed it got stuck at the T-13 (T minus thirteen) stage of the install - which is where any custom apps (if the CD has been customized) are notrmally installed. So you Googled and found out this is a *common* (I have never had it happen persoanlly - but *shrug*) occurence and the solution is to reboot. So you did and the install picked up where it left off and finished the install.

Windows XP booted. You were/are in Windows XP.

Here is what I need you to do *at this point*...

Open Disk Manager...
Start buttun --> RUN --> type in:
diskmgmt.msc
--> Click OK.

When that loads you should see a window with two panes - a top pane and a bottom pane.

From the top pane I need you to painstakenly copy the lines you see there and post them here, seperated by a single <enter> (single spaced format) for each individual line you reproduce.
Example:
(C:) Partition Basic NTFS Healthy (System) 38.4GB 8.59GB 22% No 0%
(E:) Partition Basic FAT32 Healthy 223.62GB 223.55GB 99% No 0%

From the bottom pane, I need you to look at the left side for anything labeled "Disk #" (# is any numerical value) and I need you to tell me how many icons labeled "Disk #" there are... (Like "Disk 0", "Disk 1" would be TWO.)

Since there is no way you could have filled up a 320GB driove (~299GB formatted) with only 20GB free on it and now it would have more free space on it than approximately that now WITHOUT either formatting it or erasing everything on it in some other way (on purpose, accident or involuntarily or not)... *IF* you see that your 320GB (~299GB) hard disk drive (likely "Disk 1" in the bottom pane) has most of its space free (one of the colums in the top pane is % Free - it should be fairly low if all your data is there) - then no matter what - the drive was erased.

If that is the point you are at then you need to stop trying to figure out the why and how and try to recover what you can - which may be nothing. The more you mess with this system (use it in any way) the less likely you will be to recover ANYTHING. I gave you a couple of options to look at the drive and see if it could find ANYTHING left over. Formatting and erasing - well - they don't really do what they sound like they do. They merely erase a table of contents of such - or a line or two fromsaid table of contents. This makes it harder to access the information - but not impossible. However - every second that computer is on and everytime you do something else - you are risking some bit of data being overwritten (since the table of contents for the data is gone - the computer goes with the assumption that these are 'blank pages' and it writes where ever it pleases - likely, in the case of a nearly full drive, overwriting some parts of the data you are trying to recover.)

I am going to repeat my posting to you again - as it seems to have been ignored by you at some point. Perhaps you just never saw it.


You may wish to try:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4474.html

It has worked for many people in the past. (It is free)

The best product I can recommend for recovery of these files - although it
costs money - is "UnDelete". Out of all the ones I have ever used, it is by
far the easiest in situations like this. Not only that - but I recommend
installing it as a continuous use product - since it can be useful that way
too. For the $30-$50, to me, it's worth that and more. www.undelete.com
--> home product is fine.

You can use the trial first!!


That's where you are at now. No one can tell you with any certainty *how* you got to this point - but given the information you have given (and I sifted through to get here) and the information you can collect following the instructions in this response - I feel you have erased (in some fashion) everything off the 320GB (~299 formatted) hard disk drive and your ONLY hope is some data recovery application like those I mention above. Sorry to say it is not a *large* amount of hope - but at least it's a twinkle.

For the future, might I suggest you purchase an external 500+GB USB or Network drive and use that to backup (duplicate) what you have on your computer on a periodic basis. Backups to external media is your best net for a fall like this.

http://www.dealsites.net/
http://www.pricewatch.com/

Good Luck!

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html


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