I'll try to summarize the events leading up to my problem as best I can. I have two hard drives. I tried installing Windows Vista Business on the first one to use in a dual-boot configuration with Windows XP which was on the second hard drive. Well, the Vista installation worked fine, but when I went to boot into XP, I found Vista's boot loader hadn't recognized Windows XP. Clearly frustrated, I tried several different things until I finally decided to format the first hard drive. It was horrible I lost my entire data from the Hard drive. Vista made my data vanish. I hate it. I tried using repair tool and many recovery software, but it did not work. Please help me out.
Which of the two HDD's did you format? I assume it was the one on which you had XP installed? I'm asking, because I don't understand how Vista could simply have "made my data vanish.", unless you did something to make it vanish... like formatting the HDD which had Vista on it for instance, before you'd backed it up
Ok, first off, why did you want Vista? Second, you had 2 hard drives. The way you explain it, 1 has Vista installed, the other hard drive has XP installed. 1 = Vista 2 = XP You reformatted 1 and now your data on 2 is gone? Either you're lying, or you haven't explained everything completely. Just use your backup (Yes, your backup, you know - the one you're supposed to have in case something goes wrong?) to restore your files.
I know Vista doesn’t install itself easily. Something must have happened, that’s for sure. What software you have used to recover your data? One of the data recovery software I know is Salvage Data recovery Software for windows. My friend used the software and got his data back. Few days back I tried to recover the data of my office system, which I lost accidentally while formatting and it worked well. Try with their software. I think their site name is salvage data. All the best.
do you get a bootloader screen when you boot up the computer (like you can pick Vista, or XP)? Do both HDDs show up in my computer? maybe its not as drastic as you think... maybe you dont have your jumpers set right... make sure that the bios is recognizing both drives. try booting just from the XP drive.. often, Vista will install its own MBR and whatnot, but not erase XPs, so if you boot from the XP drive, it will boot like Vista doesnt exist.
