Corrupted Desktop - WTF?

[Kooldino]

SO I was using my PC last night and Trillian Pro decided to go down for some reason. Not that I was really doing anything other than IMs. Anyway, when it did, it somehow corrupted most of the files on my windows desktop. I run FAT32 on XP. I ran scandisk to try to fix it, and it "fixed" some things, but I didn't get my files back...

Also, I'm not paying $90 for Spinrite 6.

Anyone have any advice?

[Wombat]

Don't run FAT32.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Wombat
Don't run FAT32.

Hey, thanks.

When I installed XP over a year ago, I didn't have a lot available that could read NTFS if I ever got into a bind.

[Helevitia]

hmmm...Interesting.

My wife logged into her account this morning(Winxp - fat32) and all of her desktop icons were missing and her quick launch toolbar was gone.

I tried to re-enable the quick launch toolbar and it errors out.

Great, probably some new ****ed up virus. I haven't looked into it too much yet.

[Helevitia]

hmmm, now that I think about it, do you use AIM through trillian? I know a lot of viruses go through AIM if it is not patched. Also, my son was the last person to use the computer and he uses AIM extensively.

[Jon P. Inghram]

Thus verifying my opinion that instant messaging is evil.

[Kooldino]

Upon re-inspection, I set my WINDOWS partition to be NTFS (probably because I figured I wouldn't keep important data on there), and the rest of my drives are FAT32...

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Helevitia
hmmm, now that I think about it, do you use AIM through trillian? I know a lot of viruses go through AIM if it is not patched. Also, my son was the last person to use the computer and he uses AIM extensively.

I DO use AIM through Trillian...I'll update my virus defs...

[The PIT]

Originally posted by Jon P. Inghram
Thus verifying my opinion that instant messaging is evil.

Yup plus people clicking on dodgy websites are my main hates at the moment.

[Kooldino]

OH GOD BLESS THE FOUND.000 DIRECTORY! <3

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Kooldino
Hey, thanks.

When I installed XP over a year ago, I didn't have a lot available that could read NTFS if I ever got into a bind.

Yeah, but that was a year ago. You can convert FAT32->NTFS at any time, without formatting.

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by Wombat
Yeah, but that was a year ago. You can convert FAT32->NTFS at any time, without formatting.

I think you missed my point. My point was that if anything were to go awry on my drive, I didn't have any utilities that could read/write NTFS to help fix the problem. Now with programs like BartPE, etc, it's no longer a real issue.

The reason I didn't do it since then without formatting is because I never really thought about it once it was up and running.

[Kooldino]

BTW, here are some utils I found in the meantime...

http://www.theabsolute.net/sware/dskinv.html

http://www.data-recovery-software.net/Linux_Recovery_Download.shtml

[VJ]

Some usefull tools for reading NTFS partitions:
from DOS:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdos.shtml

from 95 and 98:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfswin98.shtml

Jörg

[Drizzt]

Originally posted by Kooldino
Upon re-inspection, I set my WINDOWS partition to be NTFS (probably because I figured I wouldn't keep important data on there), and the rest of my drives are FAT32...

I don't catch the point.
You use a fast, reliable, robust file system for the OS, and an absolutely "****-up partitions" for the data you value most?