Hard-drive corruption question

[propman]

Might want to try this:

NTFS4DOS 1.9 (read/write NTFS from DOS)
http://www.free-av.com/en/tools/11/avira_ntfs4dos_personal.html

I've downloaded it and will be trying out later....please let us know of
your experiences with it.

Update:

Tried NTFS4DOS on 80 Gig Vista Home Basic......the program recognizes
the hard drive, plus the main partition and the "hidden" recovery
partition (both NTFS). Unfortunately, when trying a "dir" on the main
partition, a "stack overflow" is generated requiring a hard reboot.

This problem "maybe" could be fixed by editing the config.sys and/or
autoexec.bat but I don't have the inclination to do so right now.

 

[propman]

I tried both cable select and jumpering master and slave. Tried them on
different IDE cables, as primary master and secondary master.


I'm not sure what you mean by this. If I have no HDD listed as a boot
device, what does this accomplish? Right now I have floppy, then CD-ROM,
then Hard Drive.

Stops the defective hard drive from booting and crashing the system
maybe?

You have to use the floppy and/or cd-rom, or USB memory stick or
whatever to boot and run your diagnostics.

This site will not open

Works here......

 

[M Skabialka]

I read the manual online, and will try this and post back my results.
Thanks for the info on this software
Mich

 

[propman]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If I have no HDD listed as a boot
device, what does this accomplish? Right now I have floppy, then CD-ROM,
then Hard Drive.

Sent the other reply and then realize I didn't expand on this topic
sufficiently....sorry about that.

What I am referring to is a system that has more than one hard drive
installed AND more than one hard drive is bootable; therefore, upon
booting up the system, a choice of which hard drive to boot (via the
BIOS) is available (basically a form of a boot manager). Some systems
BIOS's allow the addition/subtraction of boot-devices (in this case hard
drives)into lists of "use this device as a boot device" or "don't use
this device as a boot device" which is a bit more flexible than just the
more common sequential "floppy, then CD-ROM, then Hard Drive" sequence.

 

[Curious]

I did reread all of the Op's previous posts, as you implied I had not,
before I made my last post and I was confused by some of the content which
is why I asked the OP to clarify what I thought was a detailed description
of the events that have occurred.
I suggest that if you have any meaningful suggestions to help the OP that
you suggest them instead of criticizing those of us who are trying to help
but are not sure of the details.

 

[Curious]

Propman,
I have now read some of your other posts and realize that you like me are
trying to understand exactly what steps the OP has taken to resolve the
problem and to offer suggestions on how to.

 

[Gerry]

I gave up. The OP got me so confused!

--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[propman]

I ran the long diagnostics - says the drive is OK.
I looked at http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ - it doesn't list any utilities
for repairing the ntfs.sys file - the NTFS reader wasn't any help - I tried
that already.
Salvation seems to be for DOS, therefore FAT systems.

The following is the UBCD version you should try (not the one you have
listed above):

http://ubcd4win.com/

<quote on>

UBCD4Win includes network support and allows you the ability to modify
NTFS volumes, recover deleted files, create new NTFS volumes, scan hard
drives for viruses, etc. Our download includes almost everything you
need to repair your system problems. This project has been put together
to be the ultimate recovery cd and not a replacement OS (Operating
System). Please visit the "List of Tools" page for a complete list of
what is included in the latest version of UBCD4Win.

<quote off>

 

[M Skabialka]

I tried this software with suspect drive in the machine and no other drives.
It recognized that there is a drive in there, tells me the size, says it is
a Windows NTFS disk, but uses a question mark for the drive letter, so that
when I tell it to checkdisk that drive it won't accept ? as a valid
selection, or any other letter of the alphabet.
So close - yet so far....

 

[Gerry]

M Skabialka

Have you tried inserting the problem drive in a computer as a second or
slave drive.


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
..

 

[M Skabialka]

Other parts of this posting show that I have tried this.

 

[Paul]

I tried this software with suspect drive in the machine and no other drives.
It recognized that there is a drive in there, tells me the size, says it is
a Windows NTFS disk, but uses a question mark for the drive letter, so that
when I tell it to checkdisk that drive it won't accept ? as a valid
selection, or any other letter of the alphabet.
So close - yet so far....

I found a reference to "chkntfs" here.

http://www.paragon-software.com/business/ntfs-linux-professional/index.html

This is the interesting part.

http://www.paragon-software.com/exp.../NTFSforLinuxScreen/NtfsPro/Usage/chkntfs.gif

"chkntfs /dev/hdb2 -f"

That implies they're accessing the raw hard drive, without mounting it.
In Unix-land, the "hdb2" means the second partition of disk hdb. If they
said "/dev/hdb", that would reference the whole disk.

The big questions would be

1) Is this software trustworthy ? Is the driver solid enough to trust
with a delicate job like this ?

2) Does this Linux port of chkntfs, understand half of the options
available within NTFS ? For example, if it ran into "streams",
would it handle them properly ?

3) Then there is the possibility of losing the disk, by fooling
around with it. This copy of chkntfs, is going to attempt
to repair the data "in place". I would make a sector by sector
copy of the disk, to another disk first, before trying this.
The Linux "dd" command can do that. And "dd_rescue" can be used,
if the disk has sectors which give CRC errors.

Paragon has a "trial" for the professional version of the above product,
so you could try it out, and see if you can actually recover
the disk with it. But use precautions, so you don't lose the only
copy of the data.

The other bit of fun, is the installation. It looks like GNU
"configure" is running here.

http://www.paragon-software.com/exp.../Installation/Installation_Process_Driver.PNG

I'd have tried this by now, but the thing is, I don't have a
broken NTFS disk to experiment with. So I don't know if me
testing it, would have meaning or not. I mean, if I give it
a disk with is fault free, the software might be horrible
and I wouldn't know it.

*******

I suppose another way to look at this, is whether the Windows
version of chkdsk, would accept a "raw" device specification,
instead of a drive letter (mounted volume).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555302

chkdsk /r

How does it know what the "current disk" is ?

Paul

 

[propman]

As I mentioned in a previous message, this program dumped out on me
several time with a stack overflow message so I didn't waste any more
time on it. Personally I think your best bet would be either to try
accessing the disk via one of the linux distro's or UBCD4Win. Don't
know if you saw my other message concerning the latter so here is the
info again:

http://ubcd4win.com/

<quote on>

UBCD4Win is based on Bart's PE©. Bart's PE© builds a Windows®
"pre-install" environment CD, basically a simple Windows® XP booted from
CD. UBCD4Win includes network support and allows you the ability to
modify NTFS volumes, recover deleted files, create new NTFS volumes,
scan hard drives for viruses, etc. Our download includes almost
everything you need to repair your system problems. This project has
been put together to be the ultimate recovery cd and not a replacement
OS (Operating System). Please visit the "List of Tools" page for a
complete list of what is included in the latest version of UBCD4Win.

<quote off>

 

[Gerry]

M Skabialka

Sorry but this needs to be said.

With your switching of the drive from one computer to another and with
so many of your posts containing confusing statements it is difficult to
be clear about what you have tried. It is also unclear what you want
eventually to do with this drive! Are you interested in just recovering
data files from the disk or do you seriously expect to be able to use
the disk again?


--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[M Skabialka]

I actually found and downloaded BartsPE over the weekend and using a Vista
machine (and the WinXP CD) tried to create a boot CD, but it stopped when it
reached 4 errors. I will try again on an XP machine.

I did some testing with Avira NTFS4DOS and if I didn't use DIR on the entire
folder it worked OK. Just for testing I renamed ntfs.sys on a Win2K disk
and rebooted - it asked for the Win2K disk to repair the missing file. I
then went back and renamed it back.
But on the bad drive I couldn't even get to the file because it couldn't ID
the disk drive letter and called it ?: instead of C: so I couldn't change to
that drive.

Hopefully Barts PE will allow me to recover the user files on the drive,
then I'll reformat it. The Western Digital diagnostics says nothing is
wrong with it, but I do have an RMA to return it for replacement which I'll
probably do.

Mich

 

[Dominic Payer]

Get the CD download - not the DVD, you don't need the extras - from
http://www.knoppix.org/ and burn the image to CD. In case you don't
know, do not just treat the ISO file as data, it must be burned as an image.

Then boot from the CD. It may seem a little strange but it boots to a
windowed environment, so you shouldn't have any real trouble. Once you
have found the equivalent of Windows Explorer you will find it works in
much the same way and you can copy, paste and backup to and from any
CD/DVD, hard disk or USB drive.

The system runs from the CD, so there are several things it can load if
needed (many more on the DVD version) but you should need just the basic
system it boots to.

 

[M Skabialka]

I have recovered the data

I gave up. The OP got me so confused!
--


Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[M Skabialka]

I have recovered the data

Sent the other reply and then realize I didn't expand on this topic
sufficiently....sorry about that.

What I am referring to is a system that has more than one hard drive
installed AND more than one hard drive is bootable; therefore, upon
booting up the system, a choice of which hard drive to boot (via the BIOS)
is available (basically a form of a boot manager). Some systems BIOS's
allow the addition/subtraction of boot-devices (in this case hard
drives)into lists of "use this device as a boot device" or "don't use this
device as a boot device" which is a bit more flexible than just the more
common sequential "floppy, then CD-ROM, then Hard Drive" sequence.

 

[M Skabialka]

Thanks propman for your suggestions - I have recovered the data.
I found out there was a newer version than I had downloaded of UBCD4Win so
downloaded that one. It took 4 tries to create the UBCD4Win boot CD from
various Windows XP disks, OEM, Upgrade, too low a SP version and Server
2003! Finally realized my antivirus was stopping one of the files.
I put only the bad disk into the system and booted to UBCD4Win and chose the
NTFS4DOS utility which recognized the disk and gave it a drive letter! From
this I was able to run a chkdsk which repaired errors. I then put the good
drive back into the system so I could boot from it and I can now see all of
the files on the (formerly) bad drive in Explorer.
Which now takes me back to the cause of the problem. Why on earth would
installing a new AGP video card in an otherwise perfectly functioning
machine cause such insidious corruption of the hard drive?
I have learned my lesson - backups, backups, backups!
Mich