http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ How-To Geek Forums Topic: Installed XP over Vista without partition or format... ouch. en Tue, 02 Dec 2008 13:23:43 +0000 http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/installed-xp-over-vista-without-partition-or-format-ouch#post-37055 Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:50:17 +0000 raphoenix 37055@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>matrixman86,</p> <p>Try running the XP Recovery Console from the XP CD.</p> <p>Go here and read second half of page.</p> <p><a href='http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654'>http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307654</a></p> <p>This will get you into the Dos Emulator and from there you can see what you have.</p> <p>Make liberal use of help with each command.</p> <p>Since many of the files and folders will be hidden; the Attrib command will be your friend.</p> <p>Moving around on the volume is a bit awkward but after experimentation, you will learn how.</p> <p>Regards,<br /> Rick P. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/installed-xp-over-vista-without-partition-or-format-ouch#post-36909 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 17:02:17 +0000 matrixman86 36909@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>So in a haste to install XP, I did not partition my hard drive... I know, I know. </p> <p>Here's the problem. (another stupid move) I hadn't backed up several files I had hoped to keep.<br /> Now.<br /> When installing XP, it only recognized 120 gb free (or so) of my 250 gb hard drive.</p> <p>So, I ran a few partition and file programs from Hiren's and it can see that there is 250 gb, but 130 of it is unreadable.<br /> I was wondering if anyone knows a way (perhaps reinstalling vista over xp without a format kinda thing) would allow for those files to be seen again.</p> <p>Or any other way of doing it really.</p> <p>I have backups, but some of the files were just created in the last week or so and I'd like to have them back.</p> <p>The Vista OS is gone (I changed the active partition to the one that is not being detected) but it is showing a file system there, I just can't view the files, XP wants me to format the rest of the hard drive (which is where I assume the files are). </p>