Question : Problem: File system on slave drive partly corrupted after System Restore/partitioning/chkds<wbr />k fiasco

Please let me know if this question would be better asked in a different Topic Area.

I am anxious to salvage the contents of a newish 200 GB drive that is displaying some Folders and files as gibberish, with nonsensical sizes and modified dates. I'm not certain exactly what action led to this effect, but I made some bad decisions while trying to have another slave harddrive on my system revert from PIO mode to DMA (it was transferring data very slowly). During this process I used PArtition Magic 8.0 to repartition and format the other drive, and then also changed a checksum in registry (following another answer on E-E). I followed up this stupidity by attempting to have windows (XP Pro) re-recognize and install the IDE controller and Channel (separately) It wouldn't. At this point I had to use System Restore to get back to a useable state.

Then I found the munched drive contents. Nothing has been written to that drive since. While my file manager sees a whole mess of stuff, File Recovery programs don't see the gibberish folders and files at all - folders now look empty which should contain home movies/music. Curiously, booting off a Knoppix 3.3 Cd-based Linux allows me to see the contents of these folders and all looks well, but I couldn't manage to copy them to another HD while using it (tangential advice needeed here). Recovery progs which check FAT state that the copies are identical. (Its FAT32). Looking over my description, I'm thinking that the checksum (I can find the Registry Key I changed if needed) might be the culprit.

So - 2 questions really. How can I restore access to these folders and files (the drive is physically fine I think) and also, how do I use Knoppix to copy stuff to another drive (I kept getting "Can't create folder xxx" or similar, even when it didn't involve the messed up drive). Please help - you are all my last hope for some precious movies and recordings.

Answer : Problem: File system on slave drive partly corrupted after System Restore/partitioning/chkds<wbr />k fiasco

Not at all surprising Martin.  The FAT is not a contiguous assignment of clusters -- files are spread all over hell to breakfast, so the simple Unix mindset (i.e Knoppix) that they are all contiguous, is a pure dream in Windows or any FAT system.  So I'm glad to know Knoppix doesn't work, as some people here on EE rave about it, but I am always suspect of of linux software on PCs -- never has worked.

If you are 1000% certain that one copy of the FAT is good, you can use norton utilities, DOS version, to restore from that FAT -- but see, Win XP is supposed to know that FAT 1 is corrupt and it will try FAT 2 as the default.  So I would be surprised if FAT2 is perfect either.  If you have NU DOS, you could try it, but keep in mind that is tampering more with an already corrupt disk.  Recommend GetDataBack first.  

As for others, I'm pretty sure it's just you and me now.  I stick with these longer than most others, but some other kind soul may still be listening.  But at 11.00 pm on a sunday night in the US, I kinda doubt it.