BootDisk that can't be accesed through EXPLORER.

[underp]

I have a BootDisk with a memory test program, that works fine when i boot with it.

But when i try to access the files through windows explorer, it says the disk is not formatted.

How can i get the files ?

[Nazgul]

You can't, because it doesn't have files as such.

When you format a normal disk, you format it using a filesystem (usually FAT12), which creates a kind of index on your disk so the operating system knows where and how to find/store files.

In the case of your memory test program it was written raw to your disk, without the use of a filesystem.

The tool can't be run from within Windows anyway, because it needs more direct access to your hardware than Windows (and most other Operating Systems) will allow, so they had to create a bootable program to circumvent the use of an OS.

Not using a filesystem for such a bootable program saves a lot of overhead for the people who created it, because they don't have to write filesystem support. (Which would be pure overhead because they don't need it.)

(The above is an oversimplification, but should get the point across)

You can copy the entire disk from within Windows by using disk imaging tools like rawread and rawrite.