Unrecognized/unknown partition type.

[Jimmy319]

I have two hard drives. Hard drive #1 has three partitions on FAT32 with Win98 as the OS. Hard #2 has two partitions with XP runnning. I encountered an NTLDR is missing problem and I tried this "sys c" command from win98 boot disk. After that, I could not even get into the directory of XP partition through DOS.

Now, when I start my Powerquest Partition Magic there are ???'s as the label of my XP partition. When I try to reinstall XP through recovery console it tells me that the partition type is unknown and that i would have to format to reinstall XP. I do not want to format.

So the question is: How do I make it say...NTFS or FAT32?



--EDIT--

I did chkdsk c: /r

After that I found there was no data left on the partition. Are there any programs to help me recover data that is free?

[wavefront]

You have XP on NTSF right?

If it is NTFS and you would like some tip go here:
http://www.ntfs.com/

[wavefront]

Some one correct me if I'm wrong about this but, DOS can't read NTFS.

I guess I'm wrong.. here is a NTFS reader for DOS (freeware)
http://www.ntfs.com/products.htm

[muno]

When you first encountered the problem you should've booted with a xp bootdisk (a disk you've copied relevant files to, including ntldr).

Now the easiest thing to do would be to set your disks as slave on some other computer running xp, copy your needed files to safety and then do a format.
-M

[Telexen]

Originally posted by wavefront
Some one correct me if I'm wrong about this but, DOS can't read NTFS.

I guess I'm wrong.. here is a NTFS reader for DOS (freeware)
http://www.ntfs.com/products.htm

Still DOS can't read NTFS partitions without another application

[Jimmy319]

Originally posted by muno
When you first encountered the problem you should've booted with a xp bootdisk (a disk you've copied relevant files to, including ntldr).

Now the easiest thing to do would be to set your disks as slave on some other computer running xp, copy your needed files to safety and then do a format.
-M

The drive reports of no data. NTFS.com tools did not report anything that was dead. The only program so far that has been able to is Media Tools Professional 2003 but that costs $500.