Cannot retrieve HDD data after system reboot....

I downgraded my system from Vista to XP Pro. I have one 80gb HD and one 400gb HD. i cannot retrieve any data from my 400gb, i have 244gb of media in there.

I go to my computer, click the 400gb drive, n it tells me that its not formatted and asks me if i want to format it...but if i format it I will lose all my data.

I also went to disk management and in the 400gb hd it shows 128gb and 244 gb seperate....

is there a way i can get my data back? I don't want to lose anything

Will it work if i upgrade back to windows vista?

 

Im not sure, but does Vista use a different file system to XP pro? If thats the case, XP probably doesnt recognise the way it was formatted in the first place. Just a guess..

 

u mean NTFS? XP and Vista run NTFS

 

No, vista uses a new system, like NTFS but different. Only XP (and possibly 2000, not sure) use NTFS. Vista needs a modified file system to use its "quicksearch" feature.

 

i reinstalled vista and still cant get into the hdd, help!!

 

Where did you install vista, might I ask?

 

u mean which drive? (C - 80 gb drive; the 400gb is my second hdd

 

Hmm, the drive should be readable then - what does it show in your disk management?

 

That's what my disk management says....

Before I assigned a letter to (Z, it was unallocated.....

 

Hmm, so 128GB was allocated and the rest forgotten? Well, if it works now then no point complaining, but that is odd - never seen that one before.

 

try and see if the free program "testdisk" can help you. It sounds like you might have a corrupt boot sector. All the information is still on the hard drive you just have to rebuild the boot sector (which is causing the hard drive to show raw).

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

 

It's probably because it's a RAW partition, it's not formatted as NTFS.

 

how do i change it to NTFS w/o losing my data?

 

heeeelellllppppp............