Hi Sonny,
I agree with Tony's evaluation in that it could very well be a compressed
drive. More information is needed from the previous owner as to what exactly
is on the drive. Depending on the size of the drive, the 11 MB (though
small) may be the result of the formatting itself. Try this, open
Windows Explorer and go to Tools \ Folder Options... and on the "View" tab
under "Hidden files and folders", change it to "Show hidden files and
folders". While on the View tab, uncheck "Hide extensions for known file
types". Click "OK".
Now open the drive and you should see any hidden folders. You should see a
"System Volume Information" folder, or a folder with a similar name, that
Windows won't allow you to access. That contains the formatting information.
Anything else, if it's there, could be the data you are looking for. Again,
you need more detailed information from the previous owner. I'm wondering at
this point why they didn't save the data themselves. And, to me, suggesting
it be saved to a DVD would indicate a large amount of data, much more than
11 MB.
Converting the FAT file system to NTFS wouldn't help in recovering the data.
The conversion can be done but there's always the possibility that the data
on the drive wouldn't survive. Here is a Microsoft Data Base article:
How to convert a FAT16 volume or a FAT32 volume to an NTFS file system in
Windows XP
http://tinyurl.com/24rgv
If, in the end, you get no help from the previous owner or you can't find
anything to recover/save, I would format the drive to NTFS using Disk
Management in Control Panel \ Administrative Tools \ Computer Management.
Then, back to business as usual.
Sven Swanson, Sr.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sonster9K" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 12:46 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] Unable to read data on old drive
I recently received an external hard drive that was
originally formatted in FAT (not sure which was
chosen, FAT16 or FAT32). I was told that there are
data files that need to be saved, preferrably onto
DVD.
When I connected the drive to my box (running Windows
XP Home), the drive did indeed mount but could not see
any files. When checking the properties of the drive
itself, 11mb of data do in fact take up space.
Is there a way to see these files???? Can a drive
formatted in FAT be reformatted into NTFS without
losing the data that's currently stored on the
drive????
Sonny Zaragoza
Visit our website regularly for FAQs,
articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more
http://freepctech.com
|
