Windows XP Home on a 40gig hdd is corrupted, so i hooked up a 120gig hdd as rpimary master and installed windows on it. the file format is FAT32 on the two Hdd's. when i hooked up the 40gig to transfer files to the 120gig it shows as ROW partition.

Tried the following:
1. tried booting into ms-dos and copy the files over. i can see the files, xcopy can copy some of them over but it stops: incorrect path, not all files could be copied.
2. tried Partition magic: D:\ shows up as unformatted again.

i know the files are there, there are no bad sectors (from scandisk in dos), but howcome i could see them only in dos? why does it show up as unformatted even though it is formatted (FAT32)?

EDIT: I have tried to hoock up the 40gig HDD as Master and then slave, pretty much any possible IDE config on this computer.
I have tried FDISK /MBR to clear the mbr, but still nothing.
Thanks in advance for your replies.

ok, that's why. Norton Ghost is finding some Bad Blocks. just what i hate.

i guess Scandisk is not all that great anyways.

I suggest you use DataRecoveryWizard to resolve your problem.
The software provides very useful functions for data recovery:
DeleteRecovery, FormatRecovery, AdvancedRecovery, RawRecovery.

This program is an efficient disk recovery software providing
you a complete answer to data loss.

First thing I recommend you download the demo version of
DataRecoveryWizard. (http://www.easeus.com/download.htm)

Run the program and select the recovery mode "DeletedRecovery",
or "FormatRecovery", or "AdvancedRecovery".

See more: http://www.easeus.com
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-deleted-files.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-lost-partition.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-formatted-partition.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-fdisked-drives.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-lost-files.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-repartitioned-drives.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-scandisk-chkdsk-disk.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-ghosted-image-data.htm
http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-encrypted-data.htm