I have a 60GB FAT32 harddisk partition on a dual boot (Windows XP/Win98) PC. It has worked fine for 2 years. Now, following an improper shutdown and the resulting WinXP ‘checking disks for errors’ screen on startup, Windows XP can’t even read the volume name and asks if I want to format the drive when I try to open it. Properties dialog shows Filesystem: RAW. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the partition as far as Windows 98 is concerned (verifies fine with scandisk), and Linux Live CDs such as SLAX also open the partition with no trouble. There is nothing wrong with the physical disk or XP drivers, since other partitions on the drive are fine even from XP. Is there any way to ‘fix’ the disc, i.e. persuade XP that it is fine, short of backing up everything and reformatting (not easy since I don’t have any large HDDs to hand so I’d have to use a stack of DVDs).
