Re-installing XP from a drive recovery folder

[CapnElectron]

I had a hard drive failure and was forced to send my hard-drive to a
data recovery facility. I sent a new target hard drive for them to
provide the recovered data. The entire disk was recovered but all
files and (including the windows xp pro boot files) were placed under a
folder in the target drive's root and not directly in the root (so it's
not bootable).

I formatted a new disk and copied (NTFS) all files and folders
(including hidden and system) from the recovery folder into the root of
the new drive. Is there any way to make the new disk bootable??? If
not, can I do a fresh installation of XP onto the new drive and then
overwrite (copy) in all the files from the recovery folder without
mucking things up.

It will be installed on the same computer it originated from.

Any help greatly appreciated.

-Mike

 

[Kerry Brown]

I had a hard drive failure and was forced to send my hard-drive to a
data recovery facility. I sent a new target hard drive for them to
provide the recovered data. The entire disk was recovered but all
files and (including the windows xp pro boot files) were placed under
a folder in the target drive's root and not directly in the root (so
it's not bootable).

I formatted a new disk and copied (NTFS) all files and folders
(including hidden and system) from the recovery folder into the root
of the new drive. Is there any way to make the new disk bootable???
If not, can I do a fresh installation of XP onto the new drive and
then overwrite (copy) in all the files from the recovery folder
without mucking things up.

It will be installed on the same computer it originated from.

Any help greatly appreciated.

-Mike

You are best to do a fresh install of XP on a different drive. Reinstall
your programs then copy your data files from the recovered files.

 

[CapnElectron]

Of course that is my last choice, but that's about a weeks worth of
work. Surely (since I have the complete disk image) there's a better
and easier method. I have several old programs (modeling) that I use,
and I can no longer find the installation disks.

-Mike

 

[Kerry Brown]

It's not an image. It is the files copied to a folder on a different drive.
The state of the files is unknown. It is very likely some of them are
corrupted. In any case with XP you can't just copy the files and expect a
working system. You could try copying them to the root of another drive then
doing a repair install.

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

 

[CapnElectron]

Thanks, I will try the repair/install method, and if that does not
work, I'll bite the bullet and do a clean install.

-Mike

 

[Kerry Brown]

Let us know how it works out. It's always good to get real world info on
data recovery and how good it works.