Strange data recovery case

[MobileTechie]

I have a customer XP PC in. Apparently the thing wouldn't boot and they had a mate over who did or at least tried things like fixboot, fixmbr and chkdsk - I cannot get a definitive history.

Anyway, the disk now looks like this: c.7GB of HP_Recovery partition, 10MB of empty space and 142GB of what was the Windows partition - it contains some of the expected directories but all file sizes are zero. The HP_Recovery reports as FAT32 but the main partition reports as FAT12! and it's volume lable is gibberish.

I've imaged it and as we speak I have R-Studio scanning the disk which should report back with the partitions, old partition and suspected files and all that.

Anyone ever seen this before? Clearly XP was not likely installed on FAT12 but how has it got to report back as that now?

 

[Vicenarian]

Not sure, but I've used Testdisk in the past to repair bad partition tables and the like.

 

[SilverLeaf]

Not sure, but I've used Testdisk in the past to repair bad partition tables and the like.

+1. TestDisk would be my first choice as well for dealing with corrupt partition tables. It's a great tool, and has good documentation as well.

 

[Screwloose]

Sounds like the FAT is corrupted.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Wow...FAT12 on large partition....haven't seen that in eons, it's like he did a "sys C:" from a DOS boot floppy disk.

 

[300DDR]

If you would have run Rstudio before the first guy ran "fixboot, fixmbr and chkdsk" then it's likely R-studio would have identified the partitions without the need for a scan. This is why it's so important to never run "fix it" software on drives that have important data. First: recover data. Then: try to fix the drive. I think it's likely Rstudio will get most/all of the data back. Good luck!

 

[Debunker13]

I've had luck with DataRescue PC3 in the past for logical drive failure. Most, if not all, data recovery attempts succeed, however once and a while in a situation like the one described, the recovery isn't always straight forward. Those are always painful. Good luck and let us know what worked.

 

[MobileTechie]

R-Studio only found a lot of FAT16 and FAT32 partitions and no useful data. Testdisk couldn't find the correct structure either, nor did various partition recovery tools. What did it was Easeus DR which found an NTFS partition and allowed the copying of the files. Since the disk has bad partitions I'm gonna leave it at that (i.e. data saved), slap in a new disk and reinstall Windows. I don't think trying to recovery the installation is likely to happen or be a good ide anyway.

I guess fixboot or something must have somehow made it look like a FAT12 partition. Not seen it before but googling it shows some people having a similar effect. Hard to say since they don't really remember what they did in detail.

Bit disappointed in R-Studio though.

 

[Vicenarian]

maybe their 'friend' did a fixboot/etc. using a disc with a different version of Windows (2000 maybe?)

Also, out of curiosity, which Easeus product did you use (the partition recovery program, or the actual data recovery software)

 

[MobileTechie]

maybe their 'friend' did a fixboot/etc. using a disc with a different version of Windows (2000 maybe?)

Also, out of curiosity, which Easeus product did you use (the partition recovery program, or the actual data recovery software)

The data recovery one. The partition recovery didn't find any NTFS.