major problem, hard drive lost

[mattyx]

hello, i have a minor disaster going on and need some help.

a win2000 computer here accidently had the windows xp disc in the cd-rom and tried to boot and install xp. i caught it and stopped it by exiting out of the install, but now the system just boots to a prompt. looks like the partition is trashed?

anyhow, i tried fixmbr and fixboot, and they didn't get it back to working. if i run the win2000 setup and go to recovery, it says it cannot find a previous installation to fix, even though i know it is there. right now it will boot and get to a point and say NTLDR missing.

i am currently salvaging the data before i attempt more fixes using getdataback.

does anyone have any suggestions on how i may be able to save this drive in its entirety? i'd really rather not reload and restore data.....

thanks.

[TripleRLtd]

hello, i have a minor disaster going on and need some help.

a win2000 computer here accidently had the windows xp disc in the cd-rom and tried to boot and install xp. i caught it and stopped it by exiting out of the install, but now the system just boots to a prompt. looks like the partition is trashed?

anyhow, i tried fixmbr and fixboot, and they didn't get it back to working. if i run the win2000 setup and go to recovery, it says it cannot find a previous installation to fix, even though i know it is there. right now it will boot and get to a point and say NTLDR missing.

i am currently salvaging the data before i attempt more fixes using getdataback.

does anyone have any suggestions on how i may be able to save this drive in its entirety? i'd really rather not reload and restore data.....

thanks.

Ouch, Governor...that must hurt. Anyway, from here: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;292175

If the Setup program does not detect a previous installation but just continues to the partitioning screen, there is a problem. An in-place upgrade may not be possible.

Which, of course you have now found out.
From here: http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...t/mltiboot.asp
we find the following:

To configure a computer containing Windows 2000 and Windows XP or Whistler Server, review the following guidelines:

• Install each operating system on a separate drive or disk partition.

• I think if you had let the installation continue withour aborting it, the disk would have been saved with a dual boot anyway...but I could be wrong. But now with all the FixMBR etc, I too wonder what can be done. Give this a chance and let's see what everyone says first. And good luck.

[MobilePCPhysician]

hello, i have a minor disaster going on and need some help.

a win2000 computer here accidently had the windows xp disc in the cd-rom and tried to boot and install xp. i caught it and stopped it by exiting out of the install, but now the system just boots to a prompt. looks like the partition is trashed?

anyhow, i tried fixmbr and fixboot, and they didn't get it back to working. if i run the win2000 setup and go to recovery, it says it cannot find a previous installation to fix, even though i know it is there. right now it will boot and get to a point and say NTLDR missing.

i am currently salvaging the data before i attempt more fixes using getdataback.

does anyone have any suggestions on how i may be able to save this drive in its entirety? i'd really rather not reload and restore data.....

thanks.

Run Windows 2000 setup It will ask you which directory to install to. Name a new directory, such as NEWWIN Complete the install. When windows installs, edit the boot.ini file and change references of NEWWIN to winnt.

Should do the trick...

[mattyx]

the problem with this is it wants to format the drive before installing. the drive is showing as RAW under partition magic in another machine.

Run Windows 2000 setup It will ask you which directory to install to. Name a new directory, such as NEWWIN Complete the install. When windows installs, edit the boot.ini file and change references of NEWWIN to winnt.

Should do the trick...

[confus-ed]

Replacing the Boot Sector
If Ntldr is damaged or missing, or if the boot sector is corrupted, you can resolve either problem by using the Recovery Console
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...kd_tro_bohs.asp

Using Recovery Console to Recover from Startup Problems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...mb_tol_zldj.asp

Troubleshooting Disks and File Systems
Windows® XP Professional provides improved troubleshooting tools for disks and file systems
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...kd_tro_blyy.asp

I just cut that out of some notes I was writing for someone else

Oooo bloody Edit : my links don't work ... hang fire I'll refind 'em

Start anyways with this 'general' one that shows you the usual ways, from using a recovery disk ? (nobody ever said) to recovery console or even a parallel install...
HOW TO: Troubleshoot the "NTLDR Is Missing" Error Message in Windows 2000

I'll go fix my notes

[mattyx]

as a follow up to all of this and to let everyone know what i finally had to do...

i got all my files back using getdataback for ntfs. that program works really well.

then i reloaded, but had an interesting problem. my drive only showed as 137 gb. thought it was the limit under 2000 without the patch, but that was not it.

i had had the drive dual partitioned, and i made a 30 gb partition on a 160 gb drive. that extra partition was missing and showed as extended under partition magic. so once i had installed all the patches to win2000 i ran partition magic and merged the partitions, thus getting all my 160gb back.

funny how the 30 gb size made it look like the problem was the 137 gb size limit issue when in fact it was not.