How to recover files

[Garron AR]

My motherboard crashed so I rebuilt the system with a new board/processor and
bought a new hard drive which I installed XP on. I then installed my old
hard drive thinking I'd be able to access the files on it and move them over
to the new drive (or at least use them.) XP won't assign a drive designation
to the old drive nor allow me to access it, although it says the drive is
installed and working properly. How do I get XP to allow me access to the
files on my old drive?

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

My motherboard crashed so I rebuilt the system with a new board/processor
and
bought a new hard drive which I installed XP on. I then installed my old
hard drive thinking I'd be able to access the files on it and move them
over
to the new drive (or at least use them.) XP won't assign a drive
designation
to the old drive nor allow me to access it, although it says the drive is
installed and working properly. How do I get XP to allow me access to the
files on my old drive?

Some questions:
- How did you try to assing a drive letter? Please be specific!
- If you cannot assign a drive letter, how could Windows "not allow you to
access it"? How did you try, what message(s) did you see?

 

[Malke]

My motherboard crashed so I rebuilt the system with a new board/processor
and
bought a new hard drive which I installed XP on. I then installed my old
hard drive thinking I'd be able to access the files on it and move them
over
to the new drive (or at least use them.) XP won't assign a drive
designation to the old drive nor allow me to access it, although it says
the drive is
installed and working properly. How do I get XP to allow me access to the
files on my old drive?

You've gotten good answers but if you can't see the drive in Windows (and
I'm going to assume you've jumpered it properly if it's IDE and it is seen
in the BIOS), boot the machine with a Linux Live CD (Knoppix, Ubuntu). Linux
will often see a drive and be able to access the files on it when Windows
won't. If there is still a problem seeing the drive, try putting it into a
USB drive enclosure instead of internally connecting it.

Malke

 

[Garron AR]

"Pegasus [MVP]" wrote:

Bios recognizes the drive properly (and I set the drive to be the secondary
hard drive in bios so the system is booting properly from my newer drive).
The attempt to assign a drive letter was done within disc management. Here I
right click on the drive and the only options which are not greyed out are
Delete Partition and Help.

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

"Greyed out" means "not available", which is not quite the same as "not
allow". When you're in Disk Management, what File System and Status do you
see for the old disk? Also: What is the size of the old disk and what
Service Pack do you run?

 

[Garron AR]

Both the new and old drives are NTFS. The new disk shows "Healthy (System)"
status while the old shows "Healthy (Active)" status. The old disk is an
80GB drive (shows 74.53GB in disk management console). I'm running XP SP3.

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

I do not know why Disk Management does not allow you to assign a drive
letter to your old disk. Perhaps the equivalent console command will tell
you more. The script below will examine your disk structure, then attempt to
mount the old disk as drive Q:. Here is what you need to do:
1. Click Start / Run
2. Type the three letters cmd
3. Click OK
4. Type the following command:
notepad c:\disk.bat{Enter}
(Allow a new file to be created)
5. Copy and paste the code below into this notepad session
(21 lines). Do not retype it - the risk of making mistakes is
substantial.
6. Save and close the file.
7. Type this command:
c:\disk.bat{Enter}
8. Copy and paste the text you see into your reply.
9. Check if drive letter Q: is assigned to your old disk.


@echo off
set prev=
set done=false
set cmd=fsutil fsinfo volumeinfo
mountvol 1>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>&1
for /F "delims=" %%a in ('mountvol') do call :Sub %%a
mountvol 1>>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>>&1
notepad c:\Mountvol.txt
goto :eof

:Sub
if %done%==true goto :eof
echo %* | find /i "no mount points" > nul
if %ErrorLevel%==0 (
echo Volume=%prev% >> c:\Mountvol.txt
%cmd% %prev% 1>>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>>&1
mountvol Q: %prev% 1>>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>>&1
set done=true
) else (
set prev=%*
)

 

[Garron AR]

Here's the text:

Creates, deletes, or lists a volume mount point.

MOUNTVOL [drive:]path VolumeName
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /D
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /L

path Specifies the existing NTFS directory where the mount
point will reside.
VolumeName Specifies the volume name that is the target of the mount
point.
/D Removes the volume mount point from the specified directory.
/L Lists the mounted volume name for the specified directory.

Possible values for VolumeName along with current mount points are:

\\?\Volume{80f8c651-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
C:\

\\?\Volume{e8b1cc1e-8493-11de-affb-806d6172696f}\
D:\

\\?\Volume{80f8c64e-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
A:\

Creates, deletes, or lists a volume mount point.

MOUNTVOL [drive:]path VolumeName
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /D
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /L

path Specifies the existing NTFS directory where the mount
point will reside.
VolumeName Specifies the volume name that is the target of the mount
point.
/D Removes the volume mount point from the specified directory.
/L Lists the mounted volume name for the specified directory.

Possible values for VolumeName along with current mount points are:

\\?\Volume{80f8c651-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
C:\

\\?\Volume{e8b1cc1e-8493-11de-affb-806d6172696f}\
D:\

\\?\Volume{80f8c64e-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
A:\

Unfortunately, the drive still doesn't have any drive letter assigned.

 

[Pegasus [MVP]]

There is a contradiction here that I am unable to resolve. You report that
the Disk Management console shows you the disk and its NTFS-formatted
partition(s). Yet the "mountvol" command shows me no partitions on the old
disk. Your report shows these drives:

\\?\Volume{80f8c651-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
C:\
\\?\Volume{e8b1cc1e-8493-11de-affb-806d6172696f}\
D:\
\\?\Volume{80f8c64e-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
A:\

When there are volumes without mount points then you get something like
this:
\\?\Volume{5b21c8e0-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f}\
C:\
\\?\Volume{5b21c8e1-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f}\
D:\
\\?\Volume{5b21c8e2-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f}\
*** NO MOUNT POINTS ***
\\?\Volume{80f8c64e-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
A:\

Perhaps you lost your partition(s) on the old disk, which is why you cannot
assign any drive letters. If so then googling for a partition recovery tool
might help you. Some are free and some have a demo mode that shows you what
could be recovered before you spend any money.

Here's the text:

Creates, deletes, or lists a volume mount point.

MOUNTVOL [drive:]path VolumeName
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /D
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /L

path Specifies the existing NTFS directory where the mount
point will reside.
VolumeName Specifies the volume name that is the target of the mount
point.
/D Removes the volume mount point from the specified
directory.
/L Lists the mounted volume name for the specified directory.

Possible values for VolumeName along with current mount points are:

\\?\Volume{80f8c651-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
C:\

\\?\Volume{e8b1cc1e-8493-11de-affb-806d6172696f}\
D:\

\\?\Volume{80f8c64e-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
A:\

Creates, deletes, or lists a volume mount point.

MOUNTVOL [drive:]path VolumeName
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /D
MOUNTVOL [drive:]path /L

path Specifies the existing NTFS directory where the mount
point will reside.
VolumeName Specifies the volume name that is the target of the mount
point.
/D Removes the volume mount point from the specified
directory.
/L Lists the mounted volume name for the specified directory.

Possible values for VolumeName along with current mount points are:

\\?\Volume{80f8c651-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
C:\

\\?\Volume{e8b1cc1e-8493-11de-affb-806d6172696f}\
D:\

\\?\Volume{80f8c64e-7e22-11de-9785-806d6172696f}\
A:\

Unfortunately, the drive still doesn't have any drive letter assigned.

I do not know why Disk Management does not allow you to assign a drive
letter to your old disk. Perhaps the equivalent console command will tell
you more. The script below will examine your disk structure, then attempt
to
mount the old disk as drive Q:. Here is what you need to do:
1. Click Start / Run
2. Type the three letters cmd
3. Click OK
4. Type the following command:
notepad c:\disk.bat{Enter}
(Allow a new file to be created)
5. Copy and paste the code below into this notepad session
(21 lines). Do not retype it - the risk of making mistakes is
substantial.
6. Save and close the file.
7. Type this command:
c:\disk.bat{Enter}
8. Copy and paste the text you see into your reply.
9. Check if drive letter Q: is assigned to your old disk.


@echo off
set prev=
set done=false
set cmd=fsutil fsinfo volumeinfo
mountvol 1>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>&1
for /F "delims=" %%a in ('mountvol') do call :Sub %%a
mountvol 1>>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>>&1
notepad c:\Mountvol.txt
goto :eof

:Sub
if %done%==true goto :eof
echo %* | find /i "no mount points" > nul
if %ErrorLevel%==0 (
echo Volume=%prev% >> c:\Mountvol.txt
%cmd% %prev% 1>>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>>&1
mountvol Q: %prev% 1>>c:\Mountvol.txt 2>>&1
set done=true
) else (
set prev=%*
)