Win98 Fat32 partition lost when plugging it into WinXp \ VOGONS

Win98 Fat32 partition lost when plugging it into WinXp

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First post, by Sovs

Posted on 2022-11-16, 21:17

Sovs Offline

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I took out the disk from my Windows 98 machine (with one fat32 partition, a pata ssd), plugged it into my Windows Xp machine with a pata to usb reader. I accidentally touched the usb cable and the connection was lost. Connecting it again gave a "Do you want to format disk"-message, and Windows couldn't see any partition or filesystem. I tried to do a scandisk on my Windows Xp machine but it didn't seem to run. Plugging it back into the Windows 98 machine started the boot process but was stopped with errors of missing files in dos promt, and the disk was mostly empty.

Any tips on how to repair the disk?

Reply 1 of 6, by debs3759

Posted on 2022-11-16, 21:24

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If the drive was recently defragmented, Puran File Recovery will probably recover everything. Might take some time, but I've had success with it on a couple of corrupt drives, recovered over 99% of lost files and directories.

See my graphics card database at www.gpuzoo.com
Constantly being worked on. Feel free to message me with any corrections or details of cards you would like me to research and add.

Reply 2 of 6, by Horun

Posted on 2022-11-17, 02:33

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Sovs wrote on 2022-11-16, 21:17:

Any tips on how to repair the disk?

Wow welcome back to Vogons ! 3 posts since 2012 has to be a low end record.
Have heard good things about Puran File Recovery but have never tried it. My usual go-to on my XP box (used for lots older stuff) for accidentally deleted files is Emergency Undelete v4 by Executive Software...

Hate posting a reply and then have to edit it because it made no sense 😁 First computer was an IBM 3270 workstation with CGA monitor. Stuff: https://archive.org/details/@horun

Reply 3 of 6, by Doornkaat

Posted on 2022-11-17, 04:33

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I remember using one of the tools from the free 2013 parted magic live CD to recover corrupted partitions. It was very easy.

Reply 4 of 6, by lolo799

Posted on 2022-11-17, 10:32

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Give TestDisk a try.

PCMCIA Sound, Storage & Graphics

Reply 5 of 6, by Sovs

Posted on 2022-11-17, 23:22

Sovs Offline

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Thanks for the help guys, but none of them worked. I also tried scandisk.exe from a Windows 98 bootdisk, and had some luck but wasn't able to fully repair it. I got some files out after that and reinstalled Windows 98.

Pretty crazy how dangerous it can be to insert a Windows 98 fat32 disk into a Windows Xp machine if the usb connection fails (even though it was only reading it)...

Reply 6 of 6, by Jura Tastatura

Posted on 2022-11-18, 13:05

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I usually use Strelec USB boot stick and run Active File Recovery from there, had best results with it. On newer machines, of course, since it's based on win10pe, but you can use usb-hdd adapters for attaching old drives.

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