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]

Quote:

HAHAHAH its called Getting LUCKY!

You telling me

Quote:

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

[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!