Hi There,

Just recently I've had a boot drive fail It was fine one night, the
next morning not fine. At this point I'm not exactly sure what
the problem is, perhaps bad spots on the drive.

My question: is there any chance of recovering some of the data?
I don't need much off of it, but a few things would be nice.

This drive has two partitions, C and D. D appears to be fine
(I've booted to a second drive in an attempt to examine the
contents of the problematic drive) C on the other hand appears
to not be readable.


Thanks for any advice/tips.

Jason

PS: Booting to the CD, using the Repair option, then FIXBOOT didn't help.

"Jason Piercey" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> PS: Booting to the CD, using the Repair option, then FIXBOOT didn't help.

There is lots of software out there that may help, like this:
http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm

There's a free app available too but I don't remember the name of it now.

If you can, put that drive into another machine and see if you can read the
C partition there. You don't mention how you know the partition isn't
"readable". How did you try to read it? Using some kind of bootable CD or
floppy utility? Or do you mean you just can't boot it?

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"Jason Piercey" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi There,
>
> Just recently I've had a boot drive fail It was fine one night, the
> next morning not fine. At this point I'm not exactly sure what
> the problem is, perhaps bad spots on the drive.
>
> My question: is there any chance of recovering some of the data?
> I don't need much off of it, but a few things would be nice.
>
> This drive has two partitions, C and D. D appears to be fine
> (I've booted to a second drive in an attempt to examine the
> contents of the problematic drive) C on the other hand appears
> to not be readable.
>
>
> Thanks for any advice/tips.
>
> Jason
>

"Gary S. Terhune" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> If you can, put that drive into another machine and see if you can read
> the C partition there. You don't mention how you know the partition isn't
> "readable". How did you try to read it? Using some kind of bootable CD or
> floppy utility? Or do you mean you just can't boot it?

[snip]

This drive has two partitions, C and D. D appears to be fine
(I've booted to a second drive in an attempt to examine the
contents of the problematic drive) C on the other hand appears
to not be readable.

[snip]


The drive does not boot, nor is it readable via another boot
drive. Windows tells me the drive isn't formatted when I try
to use windows explorer to view the contents of the drive.

While in windows repair mode (booting from the cd, then
choosing R) if I try and DIR the contents of the C drive
I get "Error during directory enumeration" or some such thing
(going from memory here)

During the boot up from a different drive, CHKDSK runs
and finds all sorts of unreadable sectors on the problematic
drive.

If you recall that name, please mention it :-)

Thanks for the suggestion.


"Mike Lowery" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> There is lots of software out there that may help, like this:
> http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm
>
> There's a free app available too but I don't remember the name of it now.
>
>

OK, then recovery software is called for. I use R-Studio from
http://www.data-recovery-software.net

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"Jason Piercey" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Gary S. Terhune" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> If you can, put that drive into another machine and see if you can read
>> the C partition there. You don't mention how you know the partition isn't
>> "readable". How did you try to read it? Using some kind of bootable CD or
>> floppy utility? Or do you mean you just can't boot it?
>
> [snip]
>
> This drive has two partitions, C and D. D appears to be fine
> (I've booted to a second drive in an attempt to examine the
> contents of the problematic drive) C on the other hand appears
> to not be readable.
>
> [snip]
>
>
> The drive does not boot, nor is it readable via another boot
> drive. Windows tells me the drive isn't formatted when I try
> to use windows explorer to view the contents of the drive.
>
> While in windows repair mode (booting from the cd, then
> choosing R) if I try and DIR the contents of the C drive
> I get "Error during directory enumeration" or some such thing
> (going from memory here)
>
> During the boot up from a different drive, CHKDSK runs
> and finds all sorts of unreadable sectors on the problematic
> drive.
>
>

I should mention that R-Studio has a free demo that you can use to see if
there is any recoverable data (might not be if the drive's mechanics are
screwed up.) If you discover files can be recovered, then you can easily
purchase the license and immediately recover the files. I've tried many
recovery software offerings and R-Studio is by far the best one I tested.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

"Gary S. Terhune" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:e1cXZ%(E-Mail Removed)...
> OK, then recovery software is called for. I use R-Studio from
> http://www.data-recovery-software.net
>
> --
> Gary S. Terhune
> MS-MVP Shell/User
> www.grystmill.com
>
> "Jason Piercey" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> "Gary S. Terhune" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> If you can, put that drive into another machine and see if you can read
>>> the C partition there. You don't mention how you know the partition
>>> isn't "readable". How did you try to read it? Using some kind of
>>> bootable CD or floppy utility? Or do you mean you just can't boot it?
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>> This drive has two partitions, C and D. D appears to be fine
>> (I've booted to a second drive in an attempt to examine the
>> contents of the problematic drive) C on the other hand appears
>> to not be readable.
>>
>> [snip]
>>
>>
>> The drive does not boot, nor is it readable via another boot
>> drive. Windows tells me the drive isn't formatted when I try
>> to use windows explorer to view the contents of the drive.
>>
>> While in windows repair mode (booting from the cd, then
>> choosing R) if I try and DIR the contents of the C drive
>> I get "Error during directory enumeration" or some such thing
>> (going from memory here)
>>
>> During the boot up from a different drive, CHKDSK runs
>> and finds all sorts of unreadable sectors on the problematic
>> drive.
>>
>>
>
>

you mentioned using fixboot.

however, did you also run
fixmbr (fix master boot record)
via the recovery console?



--

db ·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·..><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>¸.
><)))º>·´¯`·.¸. , . .·´¯`·.. ><)))º>`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><)))º>


..


"Jason Piercey" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi There,
>
> Just recently I've had a boot drive fail It was fine one night, the
> next morning not fine. At this point I'm not exactly sure what
> the problem is, perhaps bad spots on the drive.
>
> My question: is there any chance of recovering some of the data?
> I don't need much off of it, but a few things would be nice.
>
> This drive has two partitions, C and D. D appears to be fine
> (I've booted to a second drive in an attempt to examine the
> contents of the problematic drive) C on the other hand appears
> to not be readable.
>
>
> Thanks for any advice/tips.
>
> Jason
>

" db ´¯`·.. ><)))º>` .. ." <databaseben.public.newsgroup.microsoft.com>
wrote in message news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> you mentioned using fixboot.
>
> however, did you also run
> fixmbr (fix master boot record)
> via the recovery console?

Yep. No such luck.