[spidy2002]

my friend started his comp went to my computer.
there was a c:\(samsung) d: and e2'nd hdd partitioned)
but this time the e: became f: and there was a new elocal disk).
he tried to open it.
it said 38.* gb space prompted to format when actually totally there was 24 gb space.
my friend formated it. the format took about 2 sec(unbelievably fast)
he then checked his c: and d:.files were intact.
he then restarted thinking this time the new drive would disappear.
he has linux installed on the other partition.
on lilo he wanted to boot to windows(i think c
it said invalid media type.
he then booted to linux.
linux would not mount his windows drive.
he used fdisk to check out the problem.
fdisk said file system unknown in windows drive.prompted him to format when he gave it a file system.
is there a way(fdisk options) or anything by which we can access the c: without formatting?
i dont care about windows.i want my data intact.

[codejockey]

A couple of suggestions:

(1) if you have not already done so, create a boot floppy for Linux. If you have one, verify that it works. The next suggestion will remove your ability to boot to Linux, so you will need a Linux boot floppy to get back.

(2) you can use fdisk /MBR from DOS to re-write the master boot record on drive C:. This command does not format the drive, but it does transfer the files needed to boot into C:. This transfer will over-write any files placed into the boot sector by Linux (which is why you need the Linux boot floppy, above). You should then be able to boot into C:.

Hope this helps.