XP can see partition; DOS can't ????

Hi folks,

I have a large partition on my hard drive that looks fine from Windows
XP, but can't be read in DOS.

In XP: all Windows & Norton diagnostics I run look fine
shows right size, but "Unformatted" from Partition Magic 8
from Windows Explorer, has volume label
in PM8, shows no volume label

In DOS: get "Abort, Retry, Fail ?" if I try to read that partition
Norton Ghost can't see it

This is a new situation after some system instability post-upgrade.
The partition was (and I believe in reality still is) FAT32-formatted,
and as I noted, still looks fine from XP.

Clearly I'm a little concerned about the safety of the data on the
partition. It's large enough that there's no reasonable "total backup"
plan for it, although I've now got copies of everything I REALLY care
about ... but it would be a real pain to put things back right if I
had to trash it (it's got a LOT of software installed on it).

Any ideas what is wrong, and how to fix it safely?

Thanks,
Greg

Try a Win98 Bootdisk with Fdisk on it. See if Fdisk sees it.
www.bootdisk.com

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"Greg Z" wrote in message
om...
Hi folks,

I have a large partition on my hard drive that looks fine from Windows
XP, but can't be read in DOS.

In XP: all Windows & Norton diagnostics I run look fine
shows right size, but "Unformatted" from Partition Magic 8
from Windows Explorer, has volume label
in PM8, shows no volume label

In DOS: get "Abort, Retry, Fail ?" if I try to read that partition
Norton Ghost can't see it

This is a new situation after some system instability post-upgrade.
The partition was (and I believe in reality still is) FAT32-formatted,
and as I noted, still looks fine from XP.

Clearly I'm a little concerned about the safety of the data on the
partition. It's large enough that there's no reasonable "total backup"
plan for it, although I've now got copies of everything I REALLY care
about ... but it would be a real pain to put things back right if I
had to trash it (it's got a LOT of software installed on it).

Any ideas what is wrong, and how to fix it safely?

Thanks,
Greg