Im having problem with my external harddrive 500gig seems that windows can detect it as a raw fs instead of fat32. Is there any free/open software you can use for restoring the fs without reformatting? Any help is greatly appreciated! :)

Nothing free that I know of...

alright thanks!

transfer the content and reformat

Isn't the max file size for Fat32 4GB minus 1byte? Why would anyone do that to themselves?!?

Don't have a spare Linux box? Use this: http://ubuntu-rescue-remix.org/

Use DD to create an image of the drive FIRST before you start messing with it!!! You will need another drive with enough capacity to hold all the data on your fsked up drive.

Plug the drive into a Linux box and run Testdisk from here:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

Blurb from the site...

TestDisk can

* Fix partition table, recover deleted partition
* Recover FAT32 boot sector from its backup
* Rebuild FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 boot sector
* Fix FAT tables
* Rebuild NTFS boot sector
* Recover NTFS boot sector from its backup
* Fix MFT using MFT mirror
* Locate ext2/ext3 Backup SuperBlock


If Testdisk doesn't work use Photorec (http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec) to get any important files out of the image.

Have fun!


Ta,

~C.

i used photorec and it worked like a charm! thanks guys!

You welcome...

Photorec is epic!