ABTsportsline
Solid State Member
- Messages
- 18
Hi guys,
Quick recap - i had Vista loaded on my PC and two SATA drives - a WD 250 Gb and a Maxtor 300 Gb. both were setup just fine on Vista. However, my Vista version was just so buggy i finally gave up and decided to put XP Pro back on my computer. The Maxtor 300 Gb drive was my data drive with all my files - the WD 250 was the standard windows files. So i re-load XP Pro, and now (with the same hardware), i have lost LBA mode (Windows only "sees" 137 Gb of the drives.
I can see the maxtor and navigate it, however there are NO files on it and it is only 137 Gb.... what happened to my files? can i recover them? what is the best freeware file recovery software? Now if i use the Maxtor utility disk that came with the drive, it wants to format it right off the bat - no other options.... i don't want to format it though, as its FULL of my information (all my music, photos, videos, documents, what have you). The information is there, it was setup properly under Vista. i didn't delete or change anything.
The hardware i'm using: Biostar TForce 550 mobo, 3 Gb RAM, AMD 4200, etc, etc, etc.... also running SP2. Bios is updated with latest.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Both drives are SATA and ran JUST FINE under Vista.... so i doubt its a hardware error. I think there is something different required with setting it up under XP Pro (i have never had this setup under XP - i purchased these HDs and set them up under Vista.)
ANY help is greatly appreciated. i tend to think it has something to do with LBA mode, but everywhere i've searched has turned up fruitless.
Quick recap - i had Vista loaded on my PC and two SATA drives - a WD 250 Gb and a Maxtor 300 Gb. both were setup just fine on Vista. However, my Vista version was just so buggy i finally gave up and decided to put XP Pro back on my computer. The Maxtor 300 Gb drive was my data drive with all my files - the WD 250 was the standard windows files. So i re-load XP Pro, and now (with the same hardware), i have lost LBA mode (Windows only "sees" 137 Gb of the drives.
I can see the maxtor and navigate it, however there are NO files on it and it is only 137 Gb.... what happened to my files? can i recover them? what is the best freeware file recovery software? Now if i use the Maxtor utility disk that came with the drive, it wants to format it right off the bat - no other options.... i don't want to format it though, as its FULL of my information (all my music, photos, videos, documents, what have you). The information is there, it was setup properly under Vista. i didn't delete or change anything.
The hardware i'm using: Biostar TForce 550 mobo, 3 Gb RAM, AMD 4200, etc, etc, etc.... also running SP2. Bios is updated with latest.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Both drives are SATA and ran JUST FINE under Vista.... so i doubt its a hardware error. I think there is something different required with setting it up under XP Pro (i have never had this setup under XP - i purchased these HDs and set them up under Vista.)
ANY help is greatly appreciated. i tend to think it has something to do with LBA mode, but everywhere i've searched has turned up fruitless.