Hard disc recovery

[kony]

There's nothing like a consensus!

LOL.

The best bet is putting the drive in a working system,
presuming you used NTFS that would mean a win2k or xp
system... not trying to run the OS from it but rather adding
the drive merely to copy off the data and _then_ seeing if
there's anything more you could do to salvage the OS or if
it's time to reinstall it.

There are several data recovery softwares out there, the
best tend to scan the drive and recover to another drive's
space (so you need enough free space on another drive to
hold contents of this "bad" partition's data). While this
might seem overkill for only a boot sector problem, there is
insufficient detail on how/why this problem occured. A
motherboard will not generally destroy a drive's boot sector
so there's something more to this than that.

Ontrack EasyRecovery would probably get the data off the
drive if it's intact still. Certainly there are other
recovery programs, Google for them with the idea of mounting
that drive in another Win2k/xp system to get the data off
first.

 

[Captin]

past.

LOL

It's always a pleasure to see someone has a sense of humor.

Kony, first of all if you followed the thread you would have noticed I
think the easy way out here for the Gentleman to recover the data is
to either use a boot disc or install the drive as a slave.
Your opinion is surely noted of what an operating system is to you
and in future I will tell every customer that uses XP that it is no
good and they must use 2000 because you said

 

[Captin]

past.

LOL

It's always a pleasure to see someone has a sense of humor.

I think it’s ironic to tell somebody they should not use XP because it
is more user friendly? Geeks are fine , but what happens when you are
on the phone to a mere mortal who’s after support? Do you tell him his
backward because he likes the way he has to think less when using his
computer with XP installed? Has your car got power steering?
Airconditioning? You don’t need it, car’s are only to go from A to B
..maybe you should remove it?

 

[kony]

Kony, first of all if you followed the thread

It might be easier if you replied to me, rather than
addressing me in a reply to the wrong person.

you would have noticed I
think the easy way out here for the Gentleman to recover the data is
to either use a boot disc or install the drive as a slave.

.... and I agree, but that was done and the drive wasn't
recognized. "Something" is amiss in the original system
else this is just a general HDD failure.

Your opinion is surely noted of what an operating system is to you
and in future I will tell every customer that uses XP that it is no
good and they must use 2000 because you said

You don't seem to grasp the obvious. It is simply not a
good idea to switch OS in the middle of trying to (merely)
get data off a hard drive. I, personally, perfer win2k for
some uses but even then, if he had been running XP, I
certainly would NOT recommend using WIn2k instead. Rather,
keeping anything that is not necessary to change, unchanged.

HOWEVER, we have a significant issue here. OP starts out
claiming the drive has a boot sector problem, but the drive
isn't even visible otherwise, so it appears this initial
conclusion has skewed replies away from the basic steps to
detemine fitness of the drive in general... something I
briefly mentioned in passing in a past post, that a
motherboard does not typically foul up a boot sector.

If the drive is not recognized, that is not an operating
system issue. Follow the standard steps in hardware
enumeration: Is it identified in the bios, is it identified
in Device Manager or in Disk Management. Is it even visable
as a drive, not necessarily a partition? There is no reason
to believe XP would see a piece of hardware that 2K doesn't.

OP might try connecting the drive to a removable enclosure,
but that probably won't help either. With nothing seeing
the drive, next step is diagnosis with the HDD
manufacturer's utility disc.

 

[kony]

I think it’s ironic to tell somebody they should not use XP because it
is more user friendly?

I think it's ridiculous to suggest another OS when the OS
that was using the drive is available. Understand this:
There is nothing XP can do for your data that the original
OS that created it, can't. It is useless in this regard.

As I wrote previously, if there are other reasons someone
wants to run XP, so be it- but this isn't one of them.

Geeks are fine , but what happens when you are
on the phone to a mere mortal who’s after support? Do you tell him his
backward because he likes the way he has to think less when using his
computer with XP installed?

Maybe you should keep up with the thread?
4 days ago the OP mentioned trying the drive in another
system- it was not seen. This is not a problem that XP can
fix, and if I was on the phone with a (so-called)
mere-mortal, I'd not be telling them to switch to XP and
roll the bones to see what their fortune is, rather than
suggestions that address the issue.

Has your car got power steering?
Airconditioning? You don’t need it, car’s are only to go from A to B
.maybe you should remove it?

Your post has drifted into nonsense.

 

[mike o'sullivan]

HOWEVER, we have a significant issue here. OP starts out
claiming the drive has a boot sector problem, but the drive
isn't even visible otherwise, so it appears this initial
conclusion has skewed replies away from the basic steps to
detemine fitness of the drive in general... something I
briefly mentioned in passing in a past post, that a
motherboard does not typically foul up a boot sector.

If the drive is not recognized, that is not an operating
system issue. Follow the standard steps in hardware
enumeration: Is it identified in the bios, is it identified
in Device Manager or in Disk Management. Is it even visable
as a drive, not necessarily a partition? There is no reason
to believe XP would see a piece of hardware that 2K doesn't.

OP might try connecting the drive to a removable enclosure,
but that probably won't help either. With nothing seeing
the drive, next step is diagnosis with the HDD
manufacturer's utility disc.

Thanks for the interest you've shown in my ongoing problem (yes I am
still following the thread).

My current position is that I'm using a borrowed computer . My friend
and tame computer guru is shortly re-building my system, with a new
motherboard, processor, more memory and Windows XP. in the meantime,
while he's waiting for parts from his supplier, he lent me his test
machine with a 40gb HD.

As you say, recently we did load my dodgy HD as a slave in his pc, but
it would not access it.

One possibly culprit was a Promise Ultra 100 controller which he had
previously installed for me in my machine. This was removed as a
suspect, but the pc still did not find my HD. Could the drivers for the
Promise, which we did not delete, still be causing the fault maybe?

I'm logging all interesting possibilities for my mate's inspection.

Will post any developments.
Mike

(88 degrees in the UK today)

 

[kony]

Thanks for the interest you've shown in my ongoing problem (yes I am
still following the thread).

My current position is that I'm using a borrowed computer . My friend
and tame computer guru is shortly re-building my system, with a new
motherboard, processor, more memory and Windows XP. in the meantime,
while he's waiting for parts from his supplier, he lent me his test
machine with a 40gb HD.

I don't recall but is the capacity of your drive within the
native (bios support) of this lent system?

As you say, recently we did load my dodgy HD as a slave in his pc, but
it would not access it.

To clarify, "access" means that it does or does not see the
drive at all, for example in the bios POST, enumeration
screen? Did you ever run the HDD manufacturer's
diagnostics?

One possibly culprit was a Promise Ultra 100 controller which he had
previously installed for me in my machine. This was removed as a
suspect, but the pc still did not find my HD. Could the drivers for the
Promise, which we did not delete, still be causing the fault maybe?

Forget about drivers and operating system _IF_ nothing is
even detecting the drive. The system should see the drive
and be able to access regardless of whether the drivers for
this removed card are installed, but (providing the Promise
card worked otherwise) the card should've also seen the
drive. You have not precisely defined (else I've overlooked
it), _EXACTLY_ what is and isn't seen, detected, showing up,
etc, etc, etc. Those are crucial details, all the rest
might be irrelevant. Perhaps you have described it well
enough but since we do not have the system we can only go by
what you report.

 

[thumper]

past.

LOL

It's always a pleasure to see someone has a sense of humor.

I would install the drive into a system with XP Pro installed.
It is good advice to check the jumper settings etc are appropriate
If you are reinstalling Windows 2000 you should slipstream your
updates
into a new installation disc

 

[thumper]

Installing the drive as a slave is often simpler and easier than doing
a repair install for someone that’s not sure about what they are
doing.
Especially if there system has all the latest service packs and
updates
installed and their installation disc is an early one

Deep down I do suspect it’s more than the boot sector, although if
you have a person with limited experience it may not be as major as
you think. If you read the threads , I did ask ,does the system
recognise the drive? ( I did not want to count out that maybe the man
did not even try add hardware?)
By the way the information I share is from practical experience on
the job. I do not have to guess which software might and might not do
the job

 

[thumper]

I don't recall but is the capacity of your drive within the
native (bios support) of this lent system?



To clarify, "access" means that it does or does not see the
drive at all, for example in the bios POST, enumeration
screen? Did you ever run the HDD manufacturer's
diagnostics?

maybe?

Forget about drivers and operating system _IF_ nothing is
even detecting the drive. The system should see the drive
and be able to access regardless of whether the drivers for
this removed card are installed, but (providing the Promise
card worked otherwise) the card should've also seen the
drive. You have not precisely defined (else I've overlooked
it), _EXACTLY_ what is and isn't seen, detected, showing up,
etc, etc, etc. Those are crucial details, all the rest
might be irrelevant. Perhaps you have described it well
enough but since we do not have the system we can only go by
what you report.

Mike , you may have tried these but here are a few longshots to try.

Double check your jumper settings. For example does the Master drive
you are using have a jumper for Master Single drive and another for
Master with slave?
Have you tried installing the dodgy drive as a Master device on the
second IDE channel on it’s own?
I assume you tried installing the drive on both IDE channels?
You made sure the CD or DVD drives jumpers were master when the drive
was slaved on the second channel?

Often I have found quirky things with drives on the way out and I
don’t care what configuration enables the system to recognise the
drive as long as it does and I can get the data.

I hope you downloaded the seagate utilities, created the floppies
and tried using the utilitity?
Have you tried installing the drive using an external case and or IDE
to USB adaptor?

later

 

[mike o'sullivan]

I don't recall but is the capacity of your drive within the
native (bios support) of this lent system?

That's a tad technical for me. I'll pass this point over to my mate. My
tame expert has taken the drive away and he has tried various
suggestions (mostly yours) on his main machine (I'm using his test
machine). His pc did "see" the drive but could not access it. In fact,
he told me last night that he had a bit of a scare himself, when my
drive was connected as a slave. he said his computer started acting
"real strange". He hastily disconnected it and all was well.

To clarify, "access" means that it does or does not see the
drive at all, for example in the bios POST, enumeration
screen? Did you ever run the HDD manufacturer's
diagnostics?

Forget about drivers and operating system _IF_ nothing is
even detecting the drive. The system should see the drive
and be able to access regardless of whether the drivers for
this removed card are installed, but (providing the Promise
card worked otherwise) the card should've also seen the
drive. You have not precisely defined (else I've overlooked
it), _EXACTLY_ what is and isn't seen, detected, showing up,
etc, etc, etc. Those are crucial details, all the rest
might be irrelevant. Perhaps you have described it well
enough but since we do not have the system we can only go by
what you report.

When the drive was connected as slave, I remember that we could see the
drive in Windows Explorer, for what it's worth, but it could not be
accessed.

I'm continuing to pass all your helpful comments on. Glenn will be
coming to me tomorrow with my rebuilt pc (New processor, memory,
motherboard etc), so we'll see what occurs.

Thanks again
Mike

 

[kony]

That's a tad technical for me. I'll pass this point over to my mate.

basically it means that old boards' bioses may have a
capacity limit, for example 32GB or 128GB.

My
tame expert has taken the drive away and he has tried various
suggestions (mostly yours) on his main machine (I'm using his test
machine). His pc did "see" the drive but could not access it. In fact,
he told me last night that he had a bit of a scare himself, when my
drive was connected as a slave. he said his computer started acting
"real strange". He hastily disconnected it and all was well.

Did he run the drive manufacturer's diagnostics? That
usually shows a problem with this type of (problem).
Seems like the drive isn't salvageable as-is, so it's time
to evaluate what the data is worth.