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Baisangur

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Partitions can not be accessed in windows 2000/xp

Can anyone help me?
I have been using a Magic Partition for multi booting purpose. During the process I got message to install the OS right after the PC reboots. Everything was fine until I got a warning that MP is not capable with Windows Server. Since then I could install the Server version manually (without using MP) but I couldn’t see any other drives I used to see before on my system.
So I decided to use System Commander to resolve those issues, taking into account that SC would be able to work with Server OS. However, when I have installed SC and enabled it in Win Server then rebooted my system, I got error message. SC could not recognize C drive, as it (I think so) was SATA Striped. I tried to reboot again using rescue diskettes. I don’t remember the details concerning SC because I spent probably 24 ours trying different ways to resolve the problem.
Finally I was able to see my drives: ide drive and sata striped. BUT windows couldn’t recognize a file system. When I used PM to see the file system it had shown me HPFS.
I read somewhere that HPFS is not visible by Win NT later then 3.x. So I decided to convert the partitions with HPFS file system using PM to HTFS. However, I couldn’t do it because the conversion feature was inactive in the tools menu of PM. I tried also SC, but there was the same problem.
Then I tried to use Gdisk  and Gdisk32. I was able to unhide the problem partitions.
Of course I rebooted my PC and only then my partition have been changed to unhidden status. However windows could see them but no file system neither drive letter appeared in Disk Manager. When I tried to convert the partitions into NTFS file system using Convert.exe command in cli I got message that Windows can’t convert a raw partition.
Again I took a look on my problem partitions using PM and they were indicated as HPFS drives but without drive letter, just with asterisk.
I used TestDisk and could see my files on those partitions and they were unhidden (according to TestDisk). In Windows I can see drive letters NOW, but no file system. Nor I can access them. And If i try then i am being asked to format them.
The question is: What can I do to extract my data from those partitions that windows doesn’t want see again? Or maybe I can nevertheless to make them visible with htfs file system, with its drive letter, and being able to work farther with my problematic partitions again?

Here is some information about my partitions:

D:Partition      Basic      Primary      Healty            35.00 GB      100% Free space /SATA Raid 0
E:Partition      Basci      Primary      Halthy            76.00 GB      100% Free space /SATA Raid 0
J: Partition      Basic      Primary      Healty(Active)80.00 GB      100% Free space(But its not true) /IDE UltraAta

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giltjr
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Please note, HPFS is how most software identifies HPFS and NTFS formated drives.  The partition time really means that it is an installable file system (IFS), which both HPTF and NTFS are.

I will need to read and think about your post some more, but I wanted to clear that up.  Do not attempt to covert, if you get something to even attempt it, it could corrupte your data beyond repair.
Do you really have 3 hard drives?

You noted that J was not really empty even though it was shown as empty.  Are/were D and E really empty prior to starting this?

If you use TestDisk right now, can you still see your files?
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Baisangur

ASKER

Hi Giltjr

Thank you for your letter.
I have tried a lot of things and almost all  famous recovery software. Since now I can  defenetly say that the TesdDisk is the best one. Using the TestDisk I was able to recover my partitions.
The solution was rebuilding a boot sector using TestDisk. Now i got my lost partitions back and can access all data stored on those partitions.
Thank you anyway for you interest in finding solution.

Baisangur

No comment has been added to this question in more than 21 days, so it is now classified as abandoned..
I will leave the following recommendation for this question in the Cleanup topic area:
PAQ - Refund

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mcp_jon
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Computer101
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