Bad File allocation table.

[xAkirax2004]

Ok.


A few hours ago, my brother wanted to put in winows 2000 in the computer, therefore uninstalling XP pro. when it was restartibng and going into the uninstall, it said the FAT(File allocation table.) Was corrupt, Windows XP uninstall will not continue. I tried using the system recovery that come with my computer, I chose the "recover" option which was to reinstall all the whitebread files that basically my XP run. Then it said THOSE files were corrupt. Then the CD wouldnt even read. I should have chosen the format HD option. Anyways im now on a crap computer, and nothings going right for me this morning.

Someone help. please.

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Yup. You need to reformat your hard drive. It sounds like the installer has tried to convert the NTFS file system back to FAT.

 

[xAkirax2004]

Thanks Giles.

EDIT: Now can anyone help me with my Mail that was on my computer...Some of that was important. Same deal with my favroites. Is there any way you can save those via DOS?

 

[TurboSmoke]

yep, go to dos and enter the directory where your files are stored that you wanna back up....

c:\my documents>copy *.* a:\ (copies the entire directory)
c:\my documents>copy file1.jpg, file2.mp3, file3.doc a:\ (copies individual files)

 

[chris100575]

This will work if your HDD is FAT formatted rather than NTFS. If it's NTFS you're going to struggle to get DOS to read it. There are DOS based tools to read NTFS partitions, but your mileage may vary.

At the risk of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted, I'm guessing you don't do regular backups?

 

[GilesGuthrie]

Originally posted by xAkirax2004
Thanks Giles.

EDIT: Now can anyone help me with my Mail that was on my computer...Some of that was important. Same deal with my favroites. Is there any way you can save those via DOS?

Well, the FAT is the low-level means by which files are allocated to physical areas on the disk. If the FAT is defunct, the chances are that all data will be irretrievable without specialist data recovery services. These tend to be reasonably (i.e. pant-wettingly) expensive.

How much is your data worth to you?

 

[Timmotheus]

Why on earth would you want to downgrade to Windows 2000? I can certainly understand not upgrading, but there is absolutely no reason to downgrade.

 

[xAkirax2004]

Originally posted by GilesGuthrie
Well, the FAT is the low-level means by which files are allocated to physical areas on the disk. If the FAT is defunct, the chances are that all data will be irretrievable without specialist data recovery services. These tend to be reasonably (i.e. pant-wettingly) expensive.

How much is your data worth to you?

Not that bad. Just a few somewhat impotant files. (i.e. stuff from outlook, adress book etc. maybe a few favroites in internet explorer.) but now that you say that its really expensive to retreive files, forget that. ill just format.

By the way, the computer seems to be "locked on" to the XP uninstall because what happened was that it prepares for uninstallation, then restarts and proceeds to uninstall in DOS. How do I bypass it so I can be at the C: prompt and format manually. And if any, please tell me of instructions on how to format the C: drive. If I can do this, I wont have to haul it to the repair shop at about $60 an hour just to have it fixed.

Thanks.
And Giles, Are you a couputer repair specialist?? It's crazy what you know.


And @ Timmethous, Their are lots of reasons why im downgrading. and if I told you all of them, it would make your head spin.