mounted winxp hardisk problem

[Guest]

I mounted a winxp pro notebook hdd to another winxp pro machine to backup
data. I can't find the drive in win explorer so that I have to make it
"Online" in Disk Mgmt because it was detected off-line. But it was indicated
as "Unallocated".
The hdd did not boot anymore when I put it back into the notebook.
I then tried to use the 'fixmbr' using the windows recovery console but
still didn't help. What is the next step I should take in order not to loose
my data?

 

[Jetro]

Sounds like RecConsole detects the file structure, so you're probably lucky.
Console provides chkdsk and fixboot, but first you'd try to boot the system
using a diskette.

 

[Guest]

I'm confused with what boot disk to use to run chkdsk and fixboot for this
winxp hdd. When I boot the RecConsole using the CD, it doesn't recognize the
drive with this msg- "The specified drive is not valid, there is no disk in
the drive". The system BIOS detects the drive ok. It failed this time when I
did a fixmbr again in RecConsole.
I tried to make a bootdisk from a winxp machine but still does not recognize
drive c: (which is this problem hdd).
I hope I'm lucky...does winxp sp2 have something to do with this? please
help. tnx.

 

[Jetro]

Initial post with 'fixmbr' sounded like RecConsole didn't find any
initialization errors. Apparently you missed the point when it has said "The
path or file specified is not valid" and didn't prompt for Admin password.

It's bad but curable. You need 3rd-party recovery tools like GetDataBack
from www.runtime.org. Its unregistered version lets you investigate the
quality of your files and you can also open the files with their original
application before you have to register the program.