Very strange format mistake with a happy ending

[griobhta]

Hello there,

I had a very close call a few weeks ago when I installed XP. I was running win2k with an 8 gig NTFS partition for OS and Apps and a 22gig fat32 for everything else. I hadn't planned on installing Xp as I had not backed up everything on the larger partition but became possesed by the daemon and half way through backing everything up at 11 at night I said what the hell.

I booted up on a win9x boot disk and typed 'Format c:' hit enter and said yes to the warnings.

things seemed a little strange when it seemed to be formating 22 gigs rather than 8 but it wasn't until it reached 10% that my brain finally registered my huge c**k up and I switched off the machine. I have a tendency to get all philosophical about these things and said that I as I couldn't remember what was on the partition I probably didn't need it. Yet I tried all those floppies with programs such as Lost and Found and to my dismay foud that they were all corrupt. So I went ahead and installed XP.

You can imagine my suprise that when it had finished installing I found that my 22gig partition that had been 10% formatted was present and all accounted for. Although I was relieved to say the least but also a little confused as to how this could have happened. I have checked the partition with norton, XP and Partition Magic and everything seems fine. Did the touch for once work in my favour or is this just the way it is?

griobhta


Last edited by Fingers

[NeoStarO1]

HAHAHAH its called Getting LUCKY!

[the jester]

Luck of the Irish

Same goes for your World Cup draw for next year compared to the English

But no, I have no clue as to how you got away with it. Don't shout too loud or Gates et al will be claiming that XP has cutting edge Leprachaun magic powers

[griobhta]

HAHAHAH its called Getting LUCKY!

You telling me

Same goes for your World Cup draw for next year compared to the English

well we deserved some. To take deny Holland a place in the world cup when had they done so they would have been one of the favorites. Having scored 26 points, enough to clearly win any other group bar one, not loosing a game yet still have to go to a qualifyer deserves a little luck.

Although you can never write off the Germans and Cameroon lasted to the penalties the last time they met england and are no walk over. But would take this group over Englands.

Griobhta

[Mike]

Some days you have the luck, some days you don't.
If you were this lucky this time, don't wanna know what it's gonna be like when something unlucky happens! (don't wanna jinx you though. )

[the jester]

Griobhta I wouldn't underrate any team that has made it to the finals next year.

The Irish pulled off a great performance against the Dutch.

Ireland's group is no "dream" group either - the Germans are very resilient and I think they'll rise to the occasion compared to their later qualifying games.

The African teams have gone from strength to strength since Italia 90 and there are a lot of players from those countries in all the important leagues now and so their players will be familiar with a lot of the opposition.

I reckon teams from northern Europe are going to have the hardest time adapting to the conditions as both S.Korea and Japan are very hot and humid at that time of year which will sap energy levels - think Atlanta USA 94 and then some for humidity.

All that aside, your format experience does seem extremely lucky - perhaps the Irish team should bring you along as a mascot - free touchline seat at every match

[Explorer]

Your post explains what happened to me two days ago (and something I had forgotten about).

A format on a Compaq laptop failed at 79% due to a bad hard drive sector. Imagine my surprise when everything was still on the drive. It was like I had never run format at all.

It would seem format must be able, or be allowed in your case, to run to the end before it re-writes the FAT. I've hear it said that a format doesn't actually erase anything on drive, just re-writes the File Allocation Table which then shows the drive as empty. Apparently recovery utilities can recover data from a formatted drive, or "unformat" it so there must be something to what I've heard.

I seem to recall a utility in DOS years ago that could recover files from a formatted drive. It would present a list of all files that had been on the drive with just their first letter missing. Replace that first letter and you had the file back.

[charmler]

Maybe a format starts at the opposite end of the drive from the data. I won't experiment with this but will suggest that maybe someone else does. C'mon give it a try. I'm waiting.

[Philip1952]

You see one of the reasons why now if I do a reload of an OS. I do a low level format. I have had a few corrupted installs from things format won't remove.
I am not sure. But I think format just removes the fat address for data. Not the data itself.

[FreakyOCR]

Wow I spent the last 2 1/2 hours reading that stuff.... now everything is blurry and I can't see 5 feet away clearly.... time for bed sheesh!

[Peter M]

This is because NT's (and W2K's and XP's) "formatting" procedure does NOTHING - except waste a lot of time.

regards, Peter

[the jester]

...but Peter... no comments on Germany's hopes for the world cup

j/k

This is because NT's (and W2K's and XP's) "formatting" procedure does NOTHING - except waste a lot of time.

I'm genuinely interested by this - could you explain a bit more please?

TIA

[shahani]

I can't see 5 feet away clearly

Dude, it's the eyes. They're startin' to bulge from the sides.



I too had made the same mistake of formatting the wrong partition and realised after it was like half done. In panic, I just switched the computer off and when I restarted it was was like nothing happened.

I'd guess it was what Explorer says - its only at the end that it really rewrites the FAT.

And yes, format, even with the /q switch does not "touch" the data. It simple re writes the FAT to show the drive is empty. One reason these shredder programs are so popular- they actually re write several times on the same sectors to completely shred the data.

[JUDOLIZARD]

u got lucky yes but i think its a prob with the partition, and Xp got it fixed for yah

[Peter M]

The format procedure does a sorry excuse for a surface test (reading the entire partition) to find bad sectors, and then, at the very end, installs an empty file system. It's 40 minutes of doing nothing with half a second of action at the end.

Sure, with IDE drives not having internal bad sector remapping, you MAY have some use for it someday ... provided you want to reinstall your OS on an IDE drive that isn't perfect anymore. With SCSI drives that never show bad sectors to their host computer unless they're severly broken, it's entirely redundant.

regards, Peter

[storm2k]

this is when you get happy you didn't low level format before you tried this operation (i love llf'ing)... count your blessings and continue on.

[griobhta]

well I suppose I only used format as a quicker way of deleting the files. Faster than deltree.

Not that I plan on making mistakes like this again but am quite happy that format is

40 minutes of doing nothing with half a second of action at the end.

could be used to describe some other things I know

Griobhta

[EvilRick]

It didn't rewrite the FAT table is my guess. Just like when you hit "F3" to back out of a setup. You can partition the drive all you want, but until the machine goes to reboot and THEN actually writes the new FAT table, you are in the clear.