Is this right? (Windows 2000)

I had a customer come to me crying because his laptop full of important business documents wasn't booting. He had an IT guy at his company try to fix it..but he apparently tried installing Windows 2K onto another partition for god knows what. The installation won't finish without BSoDing, so he brought it to me. Problem is, when I look at the drive I only see one partition...meaning that the IT guy installed onto the original. I see two WINN folders, and the customer's data in Documents and settings is gone.

At the moment I'm performing data recovery, but does installing Windows 2000 onto the same partition as another install normally make the files disappear or store them somewhere?

I can only guess that he was trying to install windows 2000 onto another partition so he could access the data...but that defeats the purpose by installing to the same place. >_<

KG

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Comments

keatron

Doing a parallel installation will not delete data and it does not require a seperate partition. When you get to the part in the installation where it says "another windows operating system is detected....blah blah" pick\create another location for the Windows directory.

By the way, I would use XP if that's what's already installed on the machine.

Megadeth4168

As discouraging as this might be, this is what I found with a quick search.

http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=31080&rl=1

Although it's possible to install multiple OSes into the same partition on your hard drive, don't do it. However, many of the Windows operating systems, specifically Windows 95 and 98/SE/Me as well as Windows 2000 and Windows XP share similar common directory names (such as \Windows, \Program Files, and \Documents and Settings). Installing a new OS into the same partition as an existing OS runs the risk of overwriting important files. This is true, even if you select to use a different primary folder name. I highly recommend installing each OS into its own partition (with the possible exception of DOS). You make this choice when installing Windows XP through the "advanced" options during the initial phase of setup. Most other OSes (especially Windows NT and Windows 2000) offer similar options.

KGhaleon

Well, the installation never finished. He had windows 2000 on his computer and this IT guy wrote another installation to the same partition. Normally I wouldn't expect it to wipe out the files, but it did. They aren't there, neither is his user name.

You thinking upgrading 2000 to XP might make his data visible?

KG

dratnol

KGhaleon wrote:

Well, the installation never finished. He had windows 2000 on his computer and this IT guy wrote another installation to the same partition. Normally I wouldn't expect it to wipe out the files, but it did. They aren't there, neither is his user name.

You thinking upgrading 2000 to XP might make his data visible?

KG

Try getting a copy of Knoppix STD and see if any of the recovery tools can find his files. It is a long shot, but might pay off.

KGhaleon

Using data recovery software I was able to find and copy his data off the drive, so I'm not worried about that anymore. I'm just wondering why it would make all his stuff disappear? I'm confused.

Haven't heard of Knoppix STD, how is it different? I'll try the Knoppix that I have and see if I can view his files.

KG

sprkymrk

KGhaleon wrote:

Using data recovery software I was able to find and copy his data off the drive, so I'm not worried about that anymore. I'm just wondering why it would make all his stuff disappear? I'm confused.

If he installed to the same partition and didn't select a new folder other than \winnt (or \windows) then it it likely that the data was overwritten. See Keatron's note about selecting another Windows directory and Mega's post on the possibility of overwriting data, such as the \Documents and Settings folder.

KGhaleon

You mean install it to a different directory and not to the root? Because there are two WINNT folders on the root. It's fine if it's installed elsewhere?
Just curious in the event that I come across this again.

dratnol

KGhaleon wrote:

Using data recovery software I was able to find and copy his data off the drive, so I'm not worried about that anymore. I'm just wondering why it would make all his stuff disappear? I'm confused.

Haven't heard of Knoppix STD, how is it different? I'll try the Knoppix that I have and see if I can view his files.

KG

Knoppix STD (security tools distrubition) has a bunch of network/security tools on it. Everything that is not related to security or administration has been removed, they even used fluxbox or blackbox for the windows manager. It is a very handy tool to have onhand.

My guess with this computer is that the Documents and Settings folder was over written like others have suggested. The parallel install would have worked fine if it was NT 4, it had all profile information stored in the WINNT directory. With 2000 and up, the profiles are stored in %systemroot%\Documents and Settings. A different directory could have been selected for WINNT/WINDOWS, but I am unaware of anyway to change the location of the Documents and Settings folder.

blargoe

Just curious what software you used to recover the files

KGhaleon

We use Filerecovery professional, 3.2 version. Better than everything else I've used.

KG