Salvaging data with non-booting xp

[Fred Boer]

Hello:

I'm trying to help a friend who brought me their laptop. Windows XP home
edition on an IBM Thinkpad. Windows won't boot properly. Trying Safe Mode,
Last Known Good, Command Line, etc., just brings you back to the
troubleshooting screen. I booted from an XP setup disk, and was able to get
into command mode.

This is possibly a corrupt XP installation, a virus crippled computer, or a
failing hard disk. Reinstallation is called for, but, of course, they
haven't backed up their data.

I can navigate to the folder with the data, but I get an "Access Denied" if
I try to enter the subdirectory. The IBM setup disk will partition and
format but cannot repair. I've done a CHKDSK, and it has done a repair(s),
but not enough to bring it back to life.

Any ideas? If I reinstall XP from scratch (without formatting or
partitioning, of course) will XP destroy the exisiting documents in the
"Documents and Settings" subdirectories?

Thanks a lot. I could manage this easily in FAT, but NTFS is beyond my skill
set!

Fred Boer

 

[atwifa]

why not just slave up the hard disk to a working computer and transfer the
files that way?

 

[Dave Patrick]

You didn't tell us why it doesn't start but try restoring the registry, then
recover the data prior to the clean install.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545

Be sure to apply SP2 or at least these to your new install before connecting
to any network.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hello:
|
| I'm trying to help a friend who brought me their laptop. Windows XP home
| edition on an IBM Thinkpad. Windows won't boot properly. Trying Safe Mode,
| Last Known Good, Command Line, etc., just brings you back to the
| troubleshooting screen. I booted from an XP setup disk, and was able to
get
| into command mode.
|
| This is possibly a corrupt XP installation, a virus crippled computer, or
a
| failing hard disk. Reinstallation is called for, but, of course, they
| haven't backed up their data.
|
| I can navigate to the folder with the data, but I get an "Access Denied"
if
| I try to enter the subdirectory. The IBM setup disk will partition and
| format but cannot repair. I've done a CHKDSK, and it has done a repair(s),
| but not enough to bring it back to life.
|
| Any ideas? If I reinstall XP from scratch (without formatting or
| partitioning, of course) will XP destroy the exisiting documents in the
| "Documents and Settings" subdirectories?
|
| Thanks a lot. I could manage this easily in FAT, but NTFS is beyond my
skill
| set!
|
| Fred Boer
|
|
|

 

[Fred Boer]

Thanks for responding! I didn't say why it doesn't start 'cause I don't
know! It boots to the recovery screen no matter which option is chosen. The
user is computer illiterate and can provide no useful clues - just.. "it
didn't boot up...".

Thanks for the links - I'll give it a try..

Fred

 

[Fred Boer]

Thanks for the suggestion. Since this is a HDD in a laptop, I don't know if
this is easy to do. I suspect the IDE drive cable in the laptop wouldn't
work in my desktop. Still, I might take a look - Thanks!

Fred

 

[Malke]

Hello:

I'm trying to help a friend who brought me their laptop. Windows XP
home edition on an IBM Thinkpad. Windows won't boot properly. Trying
Safe Mode, Last Known Good, Command Line, etc., just brings you back
to the troubleshooting screen. I booted from an XP setup disk, and was
able to get into command mode.

This is possibly a corrupt XP installation, a virus crippled computer,
or a failing hard disk. Reinstallation is called for, but, of course,
they haven't backed up their data.

I can navigate to the folder with the data, but I get an "Access
Denied" if I try to enter the subdirectory. The IBM setup disk will
partition and format but cannot repair. I've done a CHKDSK, and it has
done a repair(s), but not enough to bring it back to life.

Any ideas? If I reinstall XP from scratch (without formatting or
partitioning, of course) will XP destroy the exisiting documents in
the "Documents and Settings" subdirectories?

Thanks a lot. I could manage this easily in FAT, but NTFS is beyond my
skill set!

Fred Boer

You've gotten some good ideas, and here are a few of mine:

1. You can download ERD Commander from Winternals on an emergency basis.
Obviously, you'll need to do this on one of your machines that has a
burner. Make the bootable cd and boot with it on the laptop. ERD
Commander has the ability to network the sick computer with a healthy
one, so you could transfer the data to one of your machines that way.

2. If that doesn't work, slave the laptop's hard drive in one of your
machines (you will need a laptop drive-to-IDE converter, very
inexpensive). Then you can use your own Windows XP installation to copy
the files over via Explorer.

3. If the files are visible but your Windows installation can't do this
(or you don't have XP), then slave the laptop drive as in #2 into a
machine that has two cd drives, one of which being a burner. Boot your
computer with Knoppix. Knoppix is a Linux distro that runs from cd. If
it sees the data on the laptop drive, you can burn the files to cd's
with the k3b program.

Good luck,

Malke