Disk Crash

[Bill H.]

While using an older HP computer with XP installed (presuming Home, it's not
my computer), suddenly it crashed. Now, all it will do is constantly
reboot. Just after the WinXP splash screen, it goes to the HP Invent logo
and starts all over. Unable to get into safe mode, and she didn't have a
recovery disk as HP only puts the info on a recovery partition. Yes, we can
with enough finese, get the HP recovery screen to come up, but don't want to
do that as it would overwrite the existing XP partition.

So, I had her send me the disk. I put it into a Dell computer, and nothing.
I could only get a blinking cursor and nothing further. Even after about 10
minutes, when one would normally get some kind of error message (non-system
disk, etc.), just the blinking cursor. So, I booted with an XP Pro cd and
ran recovery console. After I got a C: prompt, I did a DIR and got an error
msg about invalid function or some such. SO, I ran chkdsk, which reported
"errors on the disk." Then I reran chkdsk with the /r, and it took about an
hour on a 40gb disk. Now at least I can do a DIR. So, rebooted with the CD
and into recovery console. It asked which I wanted and I selected the only
one presented. Then I was asked for the admin password, which we don't
know. I typed in something, and got to a C: prompt. I could see some dirs
and files, but some I was denied access to. So, reconfigered the computer
with a working HD so I could boot with WinXP Pro, and the "bad" HD as D:
drive. Now, I'm running XP Pro and looking at the bad disk.

I see files and folders, lots. But, when I go to Documents and Settings,
Owner, it reports the folder as read only (and when I removed the checkbox
from read only, it doesn't stay unchecked), and all the values for the
paramters are zero bytes. I found some other folders with that problem as
well. I have no idea where all the stuff, at it was a lot of stuff,
previously in My Documents folder went to.

At this point, I'm just trying to recover My Documents. Any suggestions as
to what I can do now? As far as I can tell, it looks like that folder's
contents were somehow wiped out.

And when I put this drive back as C:, it just hangs with a blinking cursor
in the Dell.

Thanks.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

While using an older HP computer with XP installed (presuming Home, it's
not
my computer), suddenly it crashed. Now, all it will do is constantly
reboot. Just after the WinXP splash screen, it goes to the HP Invent logo
and starts all over. Unable to get into safe mode, and she didn't have a
recovery disk as HP only puts the info on a recovery partition. Yes, we
can
with enough finese, get the HP recovery screen to come up, but don't want
to
do that as it would overwrite the existing XP partition.

So, I had her send me the disk. I put it into a Dell computer, and
nothing.
I could only get a blinking cursor and nothing further. Even after about
10
minutes, when one would normally get some kind of error message
(non-system
disk, etc.), just the blinking cursor. So, I booted with an XP Pro cd and
ran recovery console. After I got a C: prompt, I did a DIR and got an
error
msg about invalid function or some such. SO, I ran chkdsk, which reported
"errors on the disk." Then I reran chkdsk with the /r, and it took about
an
hour on a 40gb disk. Now at least I can do a DIR. So, rebooted with the
CD
and into recovery console. It asked which I wanted and I selected the
only
one presented. Then I was asked for the admin password, which we don't
know. I typed in something, and got to a C: prompt. I could see some
dirs
and files, but some I was denied access to. So, reconfigered the computer
with a working HD so I could boot with WinXP Pro, and the "bad" HD as D:
drive. Now, I'm running XP Pro and looking at the bad disk.

I see files and folders, lots. But, when I go to Documents and Settings,
Owner, it reports the folder as read only (and when I removed the checkbox
from read only, it doesn't stay unchecked), and all the values for the
paramters are zero bytes. I found some other folders with that problem as
well. I have no idea where all the stuff, at it was a lot of stuff,
previously in My Documents folder went to.

At this point, I'm just trying to recover My Documents. Any suggestions
as
to what I can do now? As far as I can tell, it looks like that folder's
contents were somehow wiped out.

And when I put this drive back as C:, it just hangs with a blinking cursor
in the Dell.

Thanks.

Looks like the drive has serious physical issues and should be replaced.
New drives are cheap and unless your time is worthless it's cheaper to
replace and try to get the data back off the old drive.


Were you trying to booth the Dell with this drive? It would't, because the
HAL.DLL will be invalid, as will many registry entries. Did you try
hosting the disk as a secondary before running chkdsk?

The first thing to do would be (have been) to take an image of the drive.
Then, when chkdsk finishes trashing the disk, you can try to recover from
the image, and have the data safe if it wasn't badly damaged in the initial
crash.

The folders will appear as read-only, yes. This isn't a problem. You will
be denied access to files that have ownership given to a specific account.
That isn't a problem, assuming that the file system is NTFS; you just use an
admin account and take ownership. If it's FAT, it may indicate a problem.

The real problem is that chkdsk helped finish off the file tables, leading
to the 0-byte sizes you're seeing.

I would suggest that you now stop trying to make *any* changes to that
drive, as you will likely compound the problems.

Unfortunately, you may now have to take the disk for professional data
recovery. When I use these services, they seldom cost less than $1K. The
most I've paid for a 20 gig drive was US$5K.

For now, get the trial version of Acronis True Image and clone the drive to
a brand-new drive and restore the OS from the recovery partition so the
client at least has a working computer. Make an image and try to recover
files from the image.

This is, of course, an illustration of why relying on a recovery partition
is such a bad idea. If it doesn't work, if the drive's damage is severe
enough, you will probably have to buy a new XP license.

HTH
-pk

 

[Bill H.]

Thanks.

see below...

Looks like the drive has serious physical issues and should be replaced.
New drives are cheap and unless your time is worthless it's cheaper to
replace and try to get the data back off the old drive.

Yes, at this point, data recovery is the only concern.

Were you trying to booth the Dell with this drive? It would't, because the
HAL.DLL will be invalid, as will many registry entries. Did you try
hosting the disk as a secondary before running chkdsk?

I really didn't expect it to boot, but I wanted to see how far I might get.

When I first hosted the disk as a secondary, the primary boot was win98.
, so couldn't see the drive, but it did show up in CMOS. At that point,
I did not have any XP to try it on, so I booted via CD and ran chkdsk from
there. I later found a HD that I installed WinXP on to help, but I guess
it was too late by then. :-(

The first thing to do would be (have been) to take an image of the drive.
Then, when chkdsk finishes trashing the disk, you can try to recover from
the image, and have the data safe if it wasn't badly damaged in the initial
crash.

Didn't have a way to do that then.

The folders will appear as read-only, yes. This isn't a problem. You will
be denied access to files that have ownership given to a specific account.
That isn't a problem, assuming that the file system is NTFS; you just use an
admin account and take ownership. If it's FAT, it may indicate a problem.

Yes, file system was NTFS, and not a problem as I could still read what was
in those read only folders/files

The real problem is that chkdsk helped finish off the file tables, leading
to the 0-byte sizes you're seeing.

Doesn't chkdsk put the data in the "bad" sectors somewhere? What about
that?

I would suggest that you now stop trying to make *any* changes to that
drive, as you will likely compound the problems.

Unfortunately, you may now have to take the disk for professional data
recovery. When I use these services, they seldom cost less than $1K. The
most I've paid for a 20 gig drive was US$5K.

For now, get the trial version of Acronis True Image and clone the drive to
a brand-new drive and restore the OS from the recovery partition so the
client at least has a working computer. Make an image and try to recover
files from the image.

I have doubts that the recovery partition will work. She did try it (before
calling me in) and said nothing happened.

This is, of course, an illustration of why relying on a recovery partition
is such a bad idea. If it doesn't work, if the drive's damage is severe
enough, you will probably have to buy a new XP license.

Yeah, I've been preaching to her to get/use backup, but...

And, HP says they are out of the "real" recovery disks you're supposed to be
able to buy when the drive fails. ;-)