Hello,

One may ask why you have not backed up your data before performing a major operation on your computer. Then again, why don't you have backups in the firstplace? That was your first mistake. I will bet you will not make it again, especially if you have to lose it.

It sounds like GenToo took up the first partition of the drive, and Windows is the second or third partition. Couple of ideas:

1) Boot with DOS and if you need to, get the widget to access NTFS partitions. You might be able to get to the Windows partition. You might also be able to get a network connection. If you can, copy your data off to a server, and edit the boot.ini file to find the proper partition. As homework, do a search on how to read and work with the boot.ini file. If you have NTFS, you may need to pay $$ for the widget to write to the NTFS partition.

2) You can try to re-install GenToo, being mindful where your Windows partition is, and trying hard to not over-write it.

3) You can take your hard drive over to another computer, and try to access it as a slave to another master. If IDE, make sure you set the jumpers accordingly, and you might have to go into the BIOS and make sure it is recognized and enabled. Edit the boot.ini file, and also use this as a means to save your data onto another medium in the event you need to make the system from scratch.

Either case, your first mistake involves not having backups.

Christian

I do realize the stupidity of not having backups, and that is one mistake I will never make again. One idea I did have was to take the drive over to my other Gentoo box, mount it, and then take all the files I need over to my External drive, and then (after formatting and reinstalling Windows) get the files back. I was wondering, though, how one would go about specifying the device for the slave hard drive. I think it's either /dev/hda# or /dev/sda#, but I'll work around that myself. Thank you for the information, and I will never make that mistake again.