Hard Drive boot corruption

[Guest]

I'm looking for alternatives to get into a drive that has corrupted control
data.

My machine with WinXPHome hung in the middle of a large multiple file
transfer from a USB jump drive. Task manager wouldn't kill it and I had to do
a hard reboot. When it came up it found the drives, and then halted on the
blinking cursor that I only see when the OS won't load. F8 doesn't work. I
created a boot disc but the machine always attempts to boot to the
malfunctioning drive if it is set as master, regardless of BIOS boot order
settings. I switched the hard drive out and loaded XPHome on a spare drive
and set the bad drive to slave. It finds the partitions and lists them, but
any attempt to open one results in a notice that it is not formatted, and an
offer to format it. This is true for all partitions. I do not know, but I
suspect all data partitions are FAT rather than NTSF. The OS is in its own
partition, from apps and data.

Is there anything I can do at least to get into the drive, if not repair it?
The HD is a Maxtor Diamondmax 9, 80 GB. The board is a Chaintech 7VIL3 with
Phoenix Award 2003 BIOS, 512MB memory and AMD Athlon XP2200+ Thoroughbred.

Any help appreciated!
scenemaker

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm looking for alternatives to get into a drive that has corrupted control
data.

My machine with WinXPHome hung in the middle of a large multiple file
transfer from a USB jump drive. Task manager wouldn't kill it and I had to do
a hard reboot. When it came up it found the drives, and then halted on the
blinking cursor that I only see when the OS won't load. F8 doesn't work. I
created a boot disc but the machine always attempts to boot to the
malfunctioning drive if it is set as master, regardless of BIOS boot order
settings. I switched the hard drive out and loaded XPHome on a spare drive
and set the bad drive to slave. It finds the partitions and lists them, but
any attempt to open one results in a notice that it is not formatted, and an
offer to format it. This is true for all partitions. I do not know, but I
suspect all data partitions are FAT rather than NTSF. The OS is in its own
partition, from apps and data.

Is there anything I can do at least to get into the drive, if not repair it?
The HD is a Maxtor Diamondmax 9, 80 GB. The board is a Chaintech 7VIL3 with
Phoenix Award 2003 BIOS, 512MB memory and AMD Athlon XP2200+ Thoroughbred.

Any help appreciated!
scenemaker

In such situations I usually try one of these tools:
1. Install the disk as a slave in some other WinXP/2000 (which you
seem to have done already).
2. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then run ntfsdos.exe (www.sysinternals.com) if necessary.
3. Boot the machine with a Bart PE CD (www.bootdisk.com). You
will need a CD burner and a WinXP Professional CD (but no
licence key!) to make the Bart CD.

It would be interesting to hear what you mean when you say
"F8 does not work". Pressing F8 has no effect? You're not
getting anywhere by chosing any of its menu options?

 

[Guest]

In such situations I usually try one of these tools:
1. Install the disk as a slave in some other WinXP/2000 (which you
seem to have done already).
2. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then run ntfsdos.exe (www.sysinternals.com) if necessary.
3. Boot the machine with a Bart PE CD (www.bootdisk.com). You
will need a CD burner and a WinXP Professional CD (but no
licence key!) to make the Bart CD.

It would be interesting to hear what you mean when you say
"F8 does not work". Pressing F8 has no effect? You're not
getting anywhere by chosing any of its menu options?

Thank you for the suggestions. F8 produces no response.

Since posting I read a post suggesting the Maxtor drive checking utility,
which I did download. The malfunctioning drive passed all tests including the
long read test. At your suggestion I did download NTFSDOS, but apparently I
didn't need it. I had not yet tried to boot from DOS diskette with the
malfunctioning drive in slave mode, but it worked - showed me all the drives,
and I could TYPE a text file in each one, so they all must be FAT. If I boot
to the new WINXP install, it will still ask me if I want to format the drives
on the malfunctioning drive.

It keeps circling back to boot problems, because the DOS test seems to
suggest the file system is OK. I don't know what to think of WINXP not
reading those partitions, unless it's something specific to XP written to the
drive control sectors that is now corrupt. The primary partition has an
installation of WINXP on it, so it should be compatible.

I guess my next task is to recreate the WINXP startup diskette (I overwrote
it - not many diskettes around) and see if it works to access the
malfunctioning drive. And to see if I can implement the Recovery Console from
either the diskette XP, the XP installation CD, or the HD installation. And
whether the recovery console can do anything to restore the drive for what
seems like a boot sector problem. I haven't tried to execute WinXP on the
malfunctioning drive from the diskette yet [I just realized I don't even know
what the executable is], but it just might run but won't boot. As a last
resort I guess I'll try to use Drive Copy to back up the data. I just don't
have a spare with the space.

Believe me, I'm open to any other or better suggestion. I'm about out of
try-this, try-that.

Thanks for anything,
Scenemaker

 

[Leif Nordmand Andersen]

Hi Screenmaker,

Believe me, I'm open to any other or better suggestion. I'm about out of
try-this, try-that.

Just a longshot.

Do you use a motherboard with a Nvidia4 chipset??

There is a known problem between the Nvidia4 chipset and the Maxtor
Diamond Max 10 disks. If this is the case, then contact Maxtor, they
have a BIOS update for the Maxtor Diamond Max 10 disks, which resolves
the issue. I've not tried it, but word has it that it's rather
cumbersome to update, but if you follow the instructions, then it can
be done.

Regards Leif.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

In such situations I usually try one of these tools:
1. Install the disk as a slave in some other WinXP/2000 (which you
seem to have done already).
2. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com,
then run ntfsdos.exe (www.sysinternals.com) if necessary.
3. Boot the machine with a Bart PE CD (www.bootdisk.com). You
will need a CD burner and a WinXP Professional CD (but no
licence key!) to make the Bart CD.

It would be interesting to hear what you mean when you say
"F8 does not work". Pressing F8 has no effect? You're not
getting anywhere by chosing any of its menu options?

Thank you for the suggestions. F8 produces no response.

Since posting I read a post suggesting the Maxtor drive checking utility,
which I did download. The malfunctioning drive passed all tests including the
long read test. At your suggestion I did download NTFSDOS, but apparently I
didn't need it. I had not yet tried to boot from DOS diskette with the
malfunctioning drive in slave mode, but it worked - showed me all the drives,
and I could TYPE a text file in each one, so they all must be FAT. If I boot
to the new WINXP install, it will still ask me if I want to format the drives
on the malfunctioning drive.

It keeps circling back to boot problems, because the DOS test seems to
suggest the file system is OK. I don't know what to think of WINXP not
reading those partitions, unless it's something specific to XP written to the
drive control sectors that is now corrupt. The primary partition has an
installation of WINXP on it, so it should be compatible.

I guess my next task is to recreate the WINXP startup diskette (I overwrote
it - not many diskettes around) and see if it works to access the
malfunctioning drive. And to see if I can implement the Recovery Console from
either the diskette XP, the XP installation CD, or the HD installation. And
whether the recovery console can do anything to restore the drive for what
seems like a boot sector problem. I haven't tried to execute WinXP on the
malfunctioning drive from the diskette yet [I just realized I don't even know
what the executable is], but it just might run but won't boot. As a last
resort I guess I'll try to use Drive Copy to back up the data. I just don't
have a spare with the space.

Believe me, I'm open to any other or better suggestion. I'm about out of
try-this, try-that.

Thanks for anything,
Scenemaker

If F8 fails to work then your boot environment is disturbed. See
what you get when booting with a Win98 boot disk as mentioned
before, running ntfsdos.exe if necessary.

You can bypass the first stages of the disk-based WinXP boot
process by making your own WinXP boot diskette like so:
- Format a floppy disk on some other WinXP/2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinX CD to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(x)partition(y)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(x)partition(y)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy

Adjust x and y to reflect your environment. The usual
values are x=0 and y=1.

If WinXP is still intact then you will be able to boot
the machine with this boot disk.

 

[Guest]

: snip
Scenemaker

If F8 fails to work then your boot environment is disturbed. See
what you get when booting with a Win98 boot disk as mentioned
before, running ntfsdos.exe if necessary.

You can bypass the first stages of the disk-based WinXP boot
process by making your own WinXP boot diskette like so:
- Format a floppy disk on some other WinXP/2000 PC.
Don't do it on a Win9x PC - it won't work.
- Copy these files from the \i386 folder of your WinX CD to A:\
ntldr
ntdetect.com
- Create a file a:\boot.ini with these lines
[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(x)partition(y)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(x)partition(y)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect
- Boot the machine with this floppy

Adjust x and y to reflect your environment. The usual
values are x=0 and y=1.

If WinXP is still intact then you will be able to boot
the machine with this boot disk.

______________
These are helpful. The graphic adapter is an old Creative 3D Blaster
Banshee, which is nvidia based, so I'll check with Maxtor.

It turns out I do need to use NTFSdos to see all the drives. I will re-make
the XP boot diskette and see where I can get with it. With the malfunctioning
drive in slave mode the machine will boot to diskette. Or to cd for that
matter. It would not previously with the bad drive as master.

Meanwhile, things don't get better. Now on my new installation I'm tracking
down repairs to a STOP on boot because "winsrv was not found". SP2 froze
everything on installation cleanup.

I now know far more about this computer than I ever wanted to, and still
feel like an idiot.

Scenemaker