NTFS drive's bootsector changed to FAT12, HELP!

[crazytimes]

hello, i need some help. anyone, everyone, please!

i've got this 40gig NTFS drive, that is full of important data.

one day the boot sector got corrupt, and i ran XP's recovery suite (the dos-like interface), and i ran a program to re-set the boot sector. (i think the command is setboot, i can't remember)

usually it would correctly identify the filesystem (NTFS), and then rewrite a new one, but this time, to my horror, the stupid MS program said my 40gig NTFS drive was a FAT 12 drive, and proceeded to tell the forgetful drive that it is FAT 12.

FAT 12! i mean, FAT 16, or FAT 32, whatever, but FAT 12? that's so old!whatever type of FAT it is, my drive sure thinks it's not NTFS now, and i know all my data sits inside the schizophrenic drive...

is there any program/software which allows me to

recover OR repair OR directly edit my drive's boot sector? all i have to do is it back to NTFS (i think), so that i can recover my data...

thanks for reading thru my rant (and my plea). MS has been giving me headaches recently.

-josh

[skhips]

Havent got a proper soloution sorry but just a bit of info

I believe fat 12 is what a floppy disk could you of had one inserted when you ran the utility.

http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

[mjc]

I think the thing we need to do first is try to figure out why the corruption occurred in the first place....there is a good possibility you have a virus, a boot sector virus to be exact.

You might be able to recover with something like Ranish Partition Manager (http://www.ranish.com) or Test Disk (http://www.cgsecurity.org/)

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[crazytimes]

hi, thanks for the reply.

no boot-sector virus, i know exactly why it changed, because MS own program mistook my NTFS drive for a FAT12 drive.

at that time, the bootsector was unknown. it happens sometimes, and when i go into recovery console (WIN XP boot cd), i run the "setboot" (is this the correct name?), and it figures out my partition is NTFS. this time, it doesn't. it screws up.

please help, really appreciated. need software to recover/repair partition, or directly edit the partition table to change it to NTFS.

[iisbob]

The actual command is " fixboot " , not " setboot ". And when you run it it normally defaults to the standard file system you have installed and fixes the partition record for that drive ( unless you specify a different drive ). I don't see how it could have set it to FAT12, since the largest partition size FAT12 can handle is well under 20MB's. That's why it's used on only floppies now, cause it's been a long time since hard drives were measured in MB's.

I'm with the others on this-you've gotten a virus or some other issue causing your mbr to read incorrectly. I suggest you run fixboot on your primary drive, if this doesn't fix it-then run the repair option under windows install to reinstall your system files, if this is not to your taste then you are looking at a complete reinstall.

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iisbob

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.-Mark Twain

[This message has been edited by iisbob (edited 06-06-2002).]

[mjc]

The boot sector is usually pretty stable...it doesn't change itself, something has to do it (and unless you were trying to set up a multi-boot configuration or something) some outside force acted on it to make it unrecognizable in the first place...or you have a borderline hard drive, that has slight damage (which will get worse over time).

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[crazytimes]

thanks for replying! more info about this drive:

ok, my 40 gig NTFS drive USED to be my system drive, with windows and stuff inside (plus precious data!).

A while back, my graphic card died, got burnt out. replaced with a NEW one, but windows wouldn't start. I didn't know at that time, all I had to do was repair windows? Was it repair, or to reinstall? well, i didn't do these.

I went into the recovery console, and *fix-boot* (by this time, the bootsector had become unknown to windows), and then MS determined it to be FAT12.

what do you guys think? Any other info that I am missing?

(do reply back, please! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif )

[mjc]

Well the event that took out the video card couls have also damaged the bootsector or even the drive...so we are looking at a possible source for the orignal change, but I don't see how it could end up then recognizing it as a FAT12 partition....the link I posted for testdisk might be able to help...it will write a new MBR (boot sector)....there is a DOS bootdisk that contains that program available from here (http://www.drd.dyndns.org), just click on the boot disk link and scrool down, it is near the bottom of the page.

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[crazytimes]

thanks so much, i'll be looking into the solutions, Ranish and Test Disk.
meanwhile if anyone has a brain-wave, any suggestions would be helpful.

thanks everyone.