Hard disk crash please help

[Need a miracle]

Hi:

Something sent a power surge through our house today and the main circuit
breaker flipped, cutting off power to my computer.

Catastrophe. The drive won't boot. Windows just doesn't see it. Even the
"dir" command DOS (which I accessed through the repair recovery console)
gives me an error that says the "directory cannot be enumerated."

Running the Windows XP CD, I'm told that there's no system there and the
drive needs to be reformatted to install it anew.

I know the data is still there. I downloaded a program called "getdataback"
and as far as I can tell, I did not lose a single user file. The preview
function works and every file I looked at seems to be fine. All I have to do
is send in $79 and the program will copy the data over, hopefully in usable
form.

But it's a holiday weekend, and if I cannot ressurect the system itself, I
will lose days reconfiguring a new system. I cannot afford this. The preview
system won't read the "identity" files from Outlook Express, so I cannot
access critical emails.

I'm in pretty deep trouble.

Please please ... is there anyway to revive this drive? How bad can the
damage be?

 

[Malke]

Need a miracle wrote:

(snip multipost)

Asked and answered in the other newsgroup to which you posted. Please don't
multipost; it makes more work for everyone and will get you *less* help,
not more. See this for why:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossposting
http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm - multiposting

If you have forgotten where you posted or can't find your post, use Google
Groups Advanced Search and search for your name.

Malke

 

[HeyBub]

Yeah I hate programs that shake you down for money before they
actually do anything at all.

Would you prefer a program not do anything, THEN shake you down for money?

Here, you can get a high assurance that the product will meet your needs
before you lay out any cash. This is far superior to most commercial
programs, including, some hold, various Microsoft products.

 

[Anteaus]

First , get yourself a copy of Knoppix or Ubuntu Live, and try mounting the
disk in that. (use ntfs-3g for ntfs)

I've known that to work when Windows won't look at it.

 

[bw]

I know the data is still there. I downloaded a program called
"getdataback"
and as far as I can tell, I did not lose a single user file. The preview
function works and every file I looked at seems to be fine. All I have to
do
is send in $79 and the program will copy the data over, hopefully in
usable
form.

Yeah I hate programs that shake you down for money before they actually do
anything at all. If it's a bad partition table you can probably recover it
with TestDisk by Christophe Grenier, a small freeware utility. Windows
might be hosed anyway, but this utility should let you get to your data
files, without taking a chance on $79 in extortion money.

I like Ultimate Boot CD, it has testdisk and some other decent utils, good
luck.

 

[bw]

Catastrophe. The drive won't boot. Windows just doesn't see it. Even the
"dir" command DOS (which I accessed through the repair recovery console)
gives me an error that says the "directory cannot be enumerated."

p.s. take it easy, the worst thing you can do is panic. Read all the
documentation FIRST for any recovery stuff you try.

 

[Ronaldo]

I've had the "no system installed" message a number of times and most of
them have managed to logon without much of a problem... Some times I had to
try repeatedly for 10-15 minutes but finally managed to boot the system. The
message is most times incorrect; on one or another occasion I had to reset
the BIOS to default settings, and haven't had to restore or edit the
boot.ini file.

How to access the BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Other times I've used a boot disk to replace the files in the boot sector.
Or had to repair the boot sector with the foxboot command from the Recovery
Console, but I've never had to reinstall the system.

Make a boot disk with the files downloaded from
http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm download the xpquick file, zip version
to make the bootdisk manually or the .exe version which makes it for you.
Look for the download link in line: "XP Quick Boot Diskette xpquick.zip |
xpquick.exe | Read.1st". Once you logon copy the file to C:\ to replace the
damaged file/s.

And after that rebuild the boot sector from the Recovery Console, with
commands; "fixboot", "bootcfg /rebuild" or "fixmbr" in that order... fixmbr
is risky and should only be used as last resort.

The Recovery Console.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/win_xp_rec.htm

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/r_c_cmds.htm

 

[Need a miracle]

Oh My God!!!

*YOU* are God.

Testdisk is copying over all my data as we speak. It also says it found a
backup boot partition, and is asking me whether I want to use this or rebuild
the partition.

Which option should I choose?

At least I have my data. What a cool program. And FREE.

 

[Need a miracle]

Thanks to TESTDISK, my hard drive appears to be completely restored.

It boots. All the data is there. I've backed it up entirely.


Got to love this forum. And what a kick-ass program, absolutely free.

Thanks again to all.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks to TESTDISK, my hard drive appears to be completely restored.

It boots. All the data is there. I've backed it up entirely.


Got to love this forum. And what a kick-ass program, absolutely free.

Thanks again to all.

Now is the time to think about your backup policy, unless
you prefer to let the next disaster catch you unprepared.

 

[bw]

Oh My God!!!

*YOU* are God.

Testdisk is copying over all my data as we speak. It also says it found a
backup boot partition, and is asking me whether I want to use this or
rebuild
the partition.

Which option should I choose?

I know exactly how you feel, TestDisk saved 3 years of data for me several
months ago.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I know exactly how you feel, TestDisk saved 3 years of data for me several
months ago.

Are you implying that you went for three years without backing
up your important files? Mmh. I'd say you've just about used up
your good luck.

 

[bw]

Are you implying that you went for three years without backing
up your important files? Mmh. I'd say you've just about used up
your good luck.

Well if you classify 4zillion photos of Crissy Moran as "important" I guess
yeah, I never back up pics, music or zip files that can be replaced.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Well if you classify 4zillion photos of Crissy Moran as "important" I
guess yeah, I never back up pics, music or zip files that can be replaced.

It's encouraging to read that you gave some thought to the matter
and decided that your files are replaceable. Most posters in this
forum chose to wait until they suffer a major hit, then send out a
distress call ["Help me, pleeeeeeeeease, I've lost my irreplaceable
wedding pics"], then think about their backup philosophy. Perhaps
getting a new wife/husband would be less traumatic . . .

 

[bw]

Well if you classify 4zillion photos of Crissy Moran as "important" I
guess yeah, I never back up pics, music or zip files that can be
replaced.

It's encouraging to read that you gave some thought to the matter
and decided that your files are replaceable. Most posters in this
forum chose to wait until they suffer a major hit, then send out a
distress call ["Help me, pleeeeeeeeease, I've lost my irreplaceable
wedding pics"], then think about their backup philosophy. Perhaps
getting a new wife/husband would be less traumatic . . .

You make a good point, however most windows systems are preconfigured -by
default- as single drives, poorly secured, with unreliable backup tools, no
backup strategy, and critical data scattered all over the place. The cry
should be, "Help me, pleeeeeeease, some idiot designed a time bomb and sold
it to me as an operating system."