ok, now im getting somewhere i think it is NTFS, it was XP

ive run dosdfsck :

dosfsck 2.11, 12 mar 2005, FAT32, LFN
currently, only 1 or 2 FATs are supported, not 0

not sure what that means ?

ive run testdisk :

it shows two lines, one is hda - 4344MB/4143MB one is sda - 250GB/232GB

if i analyse the hda, it is CHS 133/255/63, doesnt have an endmark 0xAA55 (is this the old IDE drive i was using initially? it was 8GB though...), so i cant do anything with that one

if i analyse the sda, it is CHS 30401/255/63, has a partition 1 * HPFS - NTFS 0 1 1 30399 254 63 488375937. Structure OK, Boot Sector OK. * means primary bootable. the 488375937 seems consistent with 250GB.

I proceed on this one, and it goes green, if i hit T (change type) it was 44, i have changed it to 07. when i hit P, it just shows 3 lines, a "." and ".." and "Document and Settings".

so im closer, but no nearer lol, any ideas where all the files are, and if/how i can get them back? i suspect they are on the sda partition, but for some reason the file structure has been lost ??