Trying to save data from old disks

"Paul" wrote in message ...
Cenneth A wrote:
The disks were originally formatted with NTFS with Microsofts
software on the XP install-CD when XP was installed.

I checked them with Disk Manager and it said:

"Disk: Unknown. Not initiated."

Not initialized in the Disk Management applet means there is no end
of sector signature written to the "MBR sector". The signature is written
when the OS writes the boot code to the MBR.

No other information.
(The information from Disk Manager is my translation from DM's swedish)



The reference to "third party software", could be the usage of a DDO.
This is an example of a "trick" that sometimes upsets third party
disk preparation tools.

Could very well be, but drive overlays' usually write out an end of sector
sig to keep the OS and BIOSs happy. A drive could be "initialized" in that
context, and still have partition tables as garbage. (because they have
been moved).



This probably is not the problem, as this
would still work when used by the OS.

Not if the partition tables were not moved by the DDO. Windows
will not load MBR code from a non boot device. Only the partition table.
A DDO on a slave drive (for example) does not translate the drive.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Drive_Overlay

If you want a tool that can scan a disk for partitions, you could
try TestDisk. You don't have to "accept" the new MBR it computes.

That's worth a shot. Looking at the tables and sector 0 would also be
useful.

"Paul" wrote in message ...
Cenneth A wrote:
The disks were originally formatted with NTFS with Microsofts
software on the XP install-CD when XP was installed.

I checked them with Disk Manager and it said:

"Disk: Unknown. Not initiated."

Not initialized in the Disk Management applet means there is no end
of sector signature written to the "MBR sector". The signature is written
when the OS writes the boot code to the MBR.

No other information.
(The information from Disk Manager is my translation from DM's swedish)



The reference to "third party software", could be the usage of a DDO.
This is an example of a "trick" that sometimes upsets third party
disk preparation tools.

Could very well be, but drive overlays' usually write out an end of sector
sig to keep the OS and BIOSs happy. A drive could be "initialized" in that
context, and still have partition tables as garbage. (because they have
been moved).



This probably is not the problem, as this
would still work when used by the OS.

Not if the partition tables were not moved by the DDO. Windows
will not load MBR code from a non boot device. Only the partition table.
A DDO on a slave drive (for example) does not translate the drive.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Drive_Overlay

If you want a tool that can scan a disk for partitions, you could
try TestDisk. You don't have to "accept" the new MBR it computes.

That's worth a shot. Looking at the tables and sector 0 would also be
useful.