[electroman2]

I by mistake formatted a drive. So I downloaded a format recovery tool. But it was taking too long in scanning so I selected stop and proceeded. It was completed and it said that changes would take place after reboot. But I think it took place on whole hard disk and messed with its file table now it isn't booting and can no longer find Hard disk and says press ctrl alt del to reboot again and again. Please tell me what to do. Thanks in advance

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Hello Electroman and welcome to Geeks To Go

If the whole machine does not now boot this infers that you somehow managed to format a primary boot drive which should not be possible via a normal windows method.

Please tell us what the operating system is and do you have any reinstallation disks?

[Wolfeymole]

Hello Electroman and welcome to Geeks To Go

If the whole machine does not now boot this infers that you somehow managed to format a primary boot drive which should not be possible via a normal windows method.

Please tell us what the operating system is and do you have any reinstallation disks?

[electroman2]

I had three drives c,d,e and win xp was installed on c and 7 on d. I think while doing format recovery, the software changed the file table of the whole hard disk. As of now I do not have any reinstall disks.

[Wolfeymole]

Please tell us how you managed to format C: and D:

You didn't use DBan did you?

I am surmising that the E: drive is your optical drive.

[electroman2]

I used testdisk. E drive is hard disk drive. So I wanted to format e drive. I tried but it said that it could be format it. So I restarted the computer and formatted e drive through win 7 recovery that appears when we press f9 or f8. I opened command prompt and did it. But I revolted and saw that win 7 was not loading. So I used win xp and saw that d drive was formatted. So I used format recovery but it was taking so long in scanning or something it said press spacebar to continue
I pressed it when it reached 3.% and continued it said changes will take place after restart. I restarted and now it says a disk error occurred press ctrl alt del to restart

[Wolfeymole]

Ok the E: hard drive is faulty and that is why it could not format.

I am assuming that the D: drive containing Windows 7 is on another sata connector other than the primary connector that is listed in the bios so it sounds like you have formatted that too.

The machine should still boot ok but now contain XP as the only operating system.

Does this make sense to you?

[electroman2]

So I used win xp and saw that d drive was formatted. So I used format recovery but it was taking so long in scanning or something it said press spacebar to continue
I pressed it when it reached 3.% and continued it said changes will take place after restart. I restarted and now it says a disk error occurred press ctrl alt del to restart

[Wolfeymole]

?

[electroman2]

?

I am no longer able to boot win xp either

[Wolfeymole]

What was the original operating system on the machine, do you have a COA sticker on the machine anywhere?

[electroman2]

Win 7. No

[Wolfeymole]

Ok

So in theory this box is second hand yes unless you have misplaced the Windows 7 install disk?

[electroman2]

No this box is not second hand and I did misplace win 7 disc but never mind, I bought win 8 and installed it now.

[Wolfeymole]

I did say "Unless", however is all good to go now mate?