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Thread ID: 17704 2002-04-10 02:51:00 Unformat Fat32 Guest (0) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
42954 2002-04-10 02:51:00 After discovering the vagaries of fdisk the hard way, I need to unformat a fat32 drive. Any suggestions? Guest (0)
42955 2002-04-10 03:19:00 More details would help get you a focussed response Jeff.

At the moment we don't know why you want to unformat and the answer to that question dictates the answers you get.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Guest (0)
42956 2002-04-10 03:57:00 The problem arose when I made my PC dual boot. I made the existing hard drive the slave and added a new hard drive for the master. My original hard drive had 2 partitions, one for the OS and one for data. I then ran fdisk on the new hard drive and setup 2 partitions, one for Win98 and one for Win2k. I then formatted the C and D drives. To my surprise the drive letters were:
C: first partition master - ok
D: first partition slave - !!!
E: second partition master
F: second partition slave
So when I formatted the D drive I formatted my original C drive. Luckily all my data is safe but there are some settings etc that were on the old C drive with the OS that I would like to recover if possible.
Guest (0)
42957 2002-04-11 03:58:00 Jeff, quick research on Google says that Norton Utilities will unformat FAT32 provided the Image option was enabled at the time. Retrospective unformats are not a goer apparently.

However, I found a tiny DOS utility in beta form that purports to be able to unformat FAT 32. It might be worth a try. Take a look at jason-n3xt.org/dos/downloads/rec.htm
If that glitches, just use Google to search for <unformat + fat32> and it is in the first 10 results.

Let us know how you get on please, others may face the same problem.

Cheers

Billy 8-{)
Guest (0)
42958 2002-04-15 02:15:00 I had searched for unformat/fat32 using google. I couldn't open that particular link at first, the page had been shifted. I finally found the unformat command but it wouldn't look at the drive. I think at this stage I'll chalk it up to experience, thanks for your help. Guest (0)
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