Disater Recovery-Power Failure on Boot - Data Lost?? Help!

[Guest]

Hi,
here is the background of my dilema:- hardware is a laptop (pentium 3, 256
ram, 30gb hdd). OEM with WIN2000, but had XP SP1 update (i think) may even be
full new XP SP1- not sure. How can I tell?

During a boot I had total power loss. Tried to reboot, and on 2 occasions
manged to get to the screen where you can chose 4 options including boot
normally & safe mode. On the second occasion I managed to get to safe mode,
but the system died (power) again before i could do anything constructive. I
tried to re boot again, but all it ran was a memory check and then hung - (ie
wrnt to black screen and flashing cursor). I have no power at all now. The
internal power pack on the motherboard is dead.

I have removed the hard drive and rigged it up as an external hard drive via
USB. I thought this would be a clever way to get my data out of the drive
into a new computer. But to my horror, none of my data is there, even though
the disk shows the original capacity used as being the same pre-disaster.

Question to the IT gurus: Is the data still intact, and if so how can I
recover it?
All help much appreciated. Thankyou in advance of you advice.
Mark Gregson.

 

[Guest]

Hi Brian,
Will setting up the HD as a slave be different to viewing the contents of
the drive via USB as an external drive as I have now? As an external drive
when I explore the contents there are remamnents of folders that i recognize
(not many), but the My Documents folder is empty.
Thanks
Mark.

 

[Guest]

Usb connection is to a different machine - (one at my local library!).
I will research the links you have sent me - thank you.
One final thought. I am considering buying a new machine and taking out the
good (new) HDD and replacing it with the old one, trying to boot from a
floppy boot disk and if successfull copying the data I need out. Am I asking
for trouble when I put back the new HDD into the new machine after I complete
this task?
Thanks again for all help.
Mark.

 

[Brian A.]

Don't remove the new hd, install the old as a Slave and make sure the new is set as
Master (Not Cable Select).
Boot with an XP install disk and run the Recovery Console.
Use the "CD" command to change between directories on the old drive.
Use "DIR" to check the contents.
Use "COPY" to copy files to the new drive.

--

Brian A. Sesko { MS MVP_Shell/User }
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://www.dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375