Dynamic Disk Woes - help me recover my data!

[Guest]

Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it - one
Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub boot
loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.

I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat install
partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data from
her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of her
digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all relevant
data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
malware that infested the original installation.

So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my install
was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept in
my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the disk
to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
install resided.

The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the recovered
data back again.

Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting, but I
don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said that
it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course, because I
hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.

I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about what
I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I had
no idea how bad that would be.

Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by my
friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the data
I'm still intent on recovering.

I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need to
do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so does
this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry that
I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation I
guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any change
that low level without some confirmation.

Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Guest]

You're a real technician - aren't you?

NOT!

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Windows Disk Management console does not support a dynamic
disk upgrade on a laptop computer. Laptops usually only support
a single internal hard disk, so they cannot take advantage of the
advanced volume options that dynamic disks provide.
Ref: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;232463

Backup the important data files and perform a "clean install".

The Windows XP CD is bootable and contains all the tools necessary
to partition and format your drive. Follow this procedure and allow
Windows XP to partition and format your drive:

NOTE: It would be best to physically disconnect all your peripheral hardware
devices, except the monitor, mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

NOTE: If you have an internal Zip Drive installed, physically disconnect the
EIDE and power cable to it before proceeding, otherwise your main
hard drive may not be assigned the customary C: drive letter.
After installing Windows XP, you may then reconnect it.

1. Open your BIOS and set your "CD Drive as the first bootable device".

===> Accessing Motherboard BIOS
===> http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

2. Insert your Windows XP CD in the CD Drive and reboot your computer.
3. You'll see a message to boot to the CD....follow the instructions.
4. The setup menu will appear and you should elect to delete all the existing
Windows partitions, then create a new partition, then format the primary
partition (preferably NTFS) and proceed to install Windows XP.

5. Clean Install Windows XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

[Courtesy of Michael Stevens, MS-MVP]

6. ==> Immediately after installing Windows XP, turn on XP's Firewall.
==> http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

7. After Windows XP is installed, visit the Windows Update website
and download the available "Critical Updates".

8. After installing the critical updates, be sure and visit the support website
of the manufacturer of the computer to download and install any
available Windows XP compatible drivers, such as video adapter
and audio drivers.

9. If you happen to run into any installation difficulties, use the following resources:

How to Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;310064

Troubleshooting Windows XP Setup
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_setup.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Kelly Theriot]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it - one
| Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub boot
| loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.
|
| I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat install
| partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
| software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data from
| her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of her
| digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all relevant
| data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
| malware that infested the original installation.
|
| So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my install
| was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept in
| my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
| reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the disk
| to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
| install resided.
|
| The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the recovered
| data back again.
|
| Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting, but I
| don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said that
| it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course, because I
| hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.
|
| I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about what
| I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I had
| no idea how bad that would be.
|
| Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by my
| friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
| Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
| option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the data
| I'm still intent on recovering.
|
| I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need to
| do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so does
| this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry that
| I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
| there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation I
| guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any change
| that low level without some confirmation.
|
| Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
| some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[D.Currie]

Okay. I'm trying to fix a friend's laptop. it had 2 OS installs on it -
one
Red Hat Fedora on 8GB, and one XP on 10GB, and was booting with the Grub
boot
loader. XP was completely unusable, it was so screwed up with malware.

I booted to an XP Pro CD, and formatted the foreign disk (the Redhat
install
partition) and put a fresh install there. I loaded up some antivirus
software, spybot, and some other utilities, and started to import data
from
her old XP install. In particular, I know she was eager to recover all of
her
digital photography. Anyway, after some time, I have copied over all
relevant
data, and my new install remained uncompromised by the nasty virusses and
malware that infested the original installation.

So, I went into Disk Management, and I deleted the C: Partition (my
install
was showing up as D:\Windows), set the D: partition as active, and I kept
in
my back of my mind the fact that I would need to modify the boot.ini to
reflect the change. Before I did that, however, I decided to convert the
disk
to Dynamic so that I could span the now unformatted space where her old
install resided.

The idea was that I'd avoid doing another install and copying the
recovered
data back again.

Well, I got a message about unmounting the file system, and rebooting, but
I
don't think it gave me the option to NOT proceed at that point. It said
that
it would complete the disk conversion after the reboot. Of course, because
I
hadn't yet modified the Boot.ini, this didn't happen... it couldn't boot.

I tried to use the XP CD to repair... and without really thinking about
what
I was doing, I went into recovery mode and used the fixmbr command... I
had
no idea how bad that would be.

Anyway, I've since reloaded XP Pro to the space inhabitted originally by
my
friend's BAD install. In Disk Management, I see the whole disk as Dynamic
Unreadable, and don't even see the partition I am booting in to. The only
option I'm given here is to Convert to Basic Disk, which will delete the
data
I'm still intent on recovering.

I've been reading KB articles, and I don't quite understand what I need to
do to resolve this. The disk never finished converting to Dynamic, so does
this mean that I need to edit the boot sector to remove the 0x42 entry
that
I'll find when I run dmdiag -v? Or will need I need to modify whatever is
there to be 0x42? The articles I've read attempt to explain the situation
I
guess, but I'm not understanding it. I don't feel confident making any
change
that low level without some confirmation.

Anyone around that knows a lot about this sort of thing that can give me
some insight? It would be greatly appreciated!!!

Take the drive out, put it in a working computer, salvage the data, then
delete the partitions and start over. Anything you do at this point is
likely to make it all worse than it is now, considering how well it's gone
so far.

On the other hand, you say that you reloaded XP to where it was originally,
so you might have already lost the data that was there, depending on how you
"reloaded."

 

[Nathan McNulty]

He can't rally do that. Send it in to a data recovery place if you
really have to or you can try some data recovery software. Please also
keep your posts to one thread. If you need a better idea, post to the
original post as it makes it easier for us to follow.

 

[D.Currie]

He can't do what and why? (if you're responding to my post)

Just curious.

Then again, I didn't start a new thread, so maybe you're not responding to
me.

 

[Nathan McNulty]

I was saying he can't just put the drive in another computer and pull
data from it because he already overwrote the volume where the files he
wants to recover are, he has changed the boot record, and he has
converted the disk to dynamic.

He would need a computer running XP Pro to even see the dynamic volume.
Even if he is able to mount the volumes, there would be no data to
recover since he overwrote the volume where the orignal install with the
files he wants to recover.

He simply needs to send this thing into a data recovery place before he
destroys anymore data. Every bit he writes to that drive erases more
data that could potentially be recovered

 

[D.Currie]

I was saying he can't just put the drive in another computer and pull data
from it because he already overwrote the volume where the files he wants to
recover are, he has changed the boot record, and he has converted the disk
to dynamic.

Ah, ok. Someone else had mentioned that it wasn't possible for him to have
actually converted the disk to dynamic, so I was thinking that maybe he just
managed to mess things up some other way and that another computer might be
able to read the drive or run recovery software on it. And if it wasn't
possible for the drive to have been converted to dynamic, maybe he didn't
actually accomplish some of the other things he attempted, so perhaps the
drive isn't as unrecoverable as it seems. At this point, all we know for
sure is that it doesn't boot.

He would need a computer running XP Pro to even see the dynamic volume.
Even if he is able to mount the volumes, there would be no data to recover
since he overwrote the volume where the orignal install with the files he
wants to recover.

He simply needs to send this thing into a data recovery place before he
destroys anymore data. Every bit he writes to that drive erases more data
that could potentially be recovered

That would be the safest thing to do, of course, but most people find that
their precious data really ins't worth what a data recovery company will
charge. If that's the case, he's got nothing to lose by messing with it a
bit more. I just figured that the data would be marginally safer if he had
the drive in a working computer and he wasn't using all sorts of methods to
get it to boot. At least he's not writing to the drive.

While it's a slim chance, there's a chance that the data is all still there,
he just can get to it because he can't boot. If he puts the drive in another
computer, he might be able to recover some of it, or he'll know for sure
that it's data recovery time. Putting the drive into another computer
shouldn't harm it any more than it already has been, so there's not much
risk in giving it a try.

Also, there are some pretty decent data recovery programs; I even found one
that could extract data from drives that the OS didn't recognize. I had
another one that saw 3 layers of OSs and data that had been on a drive,
overwriting each other. Not all of it was recoverable, but much of it was,
from any of the 3 layers. If all he really did was format the drive or
delete the partition, the data is still there and it's pretty accessible
with the right tools.

But I agree, every new process makes it a little harder to get at the data,
if the process writes to the drive.