Unable to access NTFS partition-XP Pro

Linck · July 9th, 2003, 01:38 PM

This is a tough one. Nobody has been able to help me with it yet. Hope somebody here can!

I am no longer able to access the volume on disk 0 after a clean XP installation on disk 1.

The new installation is on disk 1, a NTFS 120GB Raid 2 array.

The ex-D: drive from the previous XP installation is now disk 0, a NTFS 128GB IDE drive for backup and archiving. This drive contains 40GB of vital data.

On the previous XP installation I had moved the page file from C: to D: for performance reasons.

Before formatting C:, to make a new installation of XP, I did not remove the page file from D:.

The new installation of XP has no knowledge of the ex-D: as I disconnected the drive before the new XP installation to avoid XP installing on disk 0 or endangering its contents.

After reconnecting disk 0, the new XP installation does not assign a drive letter to it, nor recognize the partition on the ex-D:. This drive and its folders do not appear in any XP program or utility.

The physical drive appears properly in Device Manager and in Disk Manager with no drive letter. Open, Explore and Properties are not available for this volume. There is no apparent way to read the drive contents.

I assume Disk Manager uses the DISKPART ASSIGN LETTER command to assign drive letters. This command will not assign drive letters on a NTFS volume that contains a pagefile.

Though I can find no confirmation of this anywhere, it appears that on startup XP sees pagefile.sys on a partition that is neither a boot drive nor a system volume, and does not assign a drive letter nor mount that volume.

Whereas disk 0 is listed in Disk Manager as healthy, active and online, its partition is inaccessible.

How can I rescue this drive with no risk to its contents?

dauss · July 9th, 2003, 01:44 PM

I think I had the same exact problem.
Go into administrative tools, its under the control panel.
Computer management
Storage Tab
Disk Management
The top will display what you have, and the bottom half tells you what on the other drive. It should say one is foreign. Just click that import foreign drive and click ok. That should be it.

meese · July 9th, 2003, 01:52 PM

Is this the ex-D drive dynamic or basic? If you right click the ex-D drive in Disk Management ( the grey area where it says Disk X, whether its dynamic or basic etc). Do you have an option to "Import Foreign Disk"?

Linck · July 9th, 2003, 02:43 PM

Hope you can read this screen shot. On it are Disk Manager, Properties and output from the DiskPart command set. It is a MBR basic disk.

Xaotic · July 9th, 2003, 02:55 PM

It looks like the drive is being read correctly. Have you tried right clicking on the white portion beside the drive and "Change Drive Letter and Path..." or does it not have that option? You may also want to see if the downloadable version of NTFS for DOS will read the partition. It's available in read only, freeware, here:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/fr...fsdospro.shtml

Linck · July 9th, 2003, 03:09 PM

Right click options are only Delete Partition and Help, all the rest are grayed out. I had DLed NTFSDos Pro and printed out the instructions before, but was hesitant to use it for fear of any "accident" that might endanger my data.

I've got the only copies of over a years work, photos, graphics, Outlook.pst, ghost, all my drivers and other things very important to me on this disk. Perhaps not so wise to have done it this way, but this disk has been my backup and archive. If I lose it I'm screwed.

dauss · July 9th, 2003, 03:29 PM

What is the status of the drive? Foreign?

Linck · July 9th, 2003, 03:35 PM

Status is Healthy(Active), Online.

Since all else seems ok, I suspect the orphan pagefile is causing the problem. Here is what the parameters for the DiskPart Assign Letter are:

assign (letter)

Assigns a drive letter or mount point to the volume with focus. If no drive letter or mount point is specified, then the next available drive letter is assigned. If the drive letter or mount point is already in use, an error is generated.

By using the assign command, you can change the drive letter associated with a removable drive.

You cannot assign drive letters to system volumes, boot volumes, or volumes that contain the paging file. In addition, you cannot assign a drive letter to an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) partition or any GUID Partition Table (GPT) partition other than a basic MSDATA partition.

meese · July 9th, 2003, 03:35 PM

Try what dauss says. Also do you know if the drive is Basic or Dynamic?

Linck · July 9th, 2003, 03:50 PM

It is a Basic, MBR drive.

What I'm hoping for is a way to rectify the problem, rather than trying to fish out 40GB.