Recover Boot Disk Contents

[Guest]

My C: boot disk hung during a reboot, "boot.ini" error then couldn't boot
from "C:\\Windows". I tried to recover it, but was unable to do so.

I have a slave disk, so I pulled the original boot disk and setup the
original slave disk as a new boot disk with a new XP SP 1 installation on an
existing partition. The new boot disk works ok.

I then tried to install my original boot disk as a slave disk so I could try
to recover whatever I wanted from it. During the boot, I received many, many
"File record segment is not readable" msg's and the boot took forever then
hung after all the msg's. I had to disconnect this disk and reboot. Is
there any way to recover information from my original boot disk? During my
recovery attempts, I was able to run the recovery tool and look at the C:
drive, I expected it to work when I installed it as a slave drive.

I'm primarily interested in email and Hotfax fax/voice messages.

thanks.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

My C: boot disk hung during a reboot, "boot.ini" error then couldn't boot
from "C:\\Windows". I tried to recover it, but was unable to do so.

I have a slave disk, so I pulled the original boot disk and setup the
original slave disk as a new boot disk with a new XP SP 1 installation on an
existing partition. The new boot disk works ok.

I then tried to install my original boot disk as a slave disk so I could try
to recover whatever I wanted from it. During the boot, I received many, many
"File record segment is not readable" msg's and the boot took forever then
hung after all the msg's. I had to disconnect this disk and reboot. Is
there any way to recover information from my original boot disk? During my
recovery attempts, I was able to run the recovery tool and look at the C:
drive, I expected it to work when I installed it as a slave drive.

I'm primarily interested in email and Hotfax fax/voice messages.

thanks.

These might help:

http://bootmaster.filerecovery.biz (has NTFS undelete tools too)
http://www.runtime.org/ (GetDataBack)

I suspect that your file system got thrashed. You may have to
consider this as an unpleasant reminder that all important files
must be backed up to an independent medium once every
week. Many people ignore the rule until they suffer a major
disaster.

 

[D.Currie]

My C: boot disk hung during a reboot, "boot.ini" error then couldn't boot
from "C:\\Windows". I tried to recover it, but was unable to do so.

I have a slave disk, so I pulled the original boot disk and setup the
original slave disk as a new boot disk with a new XP SP 1 installation on
an
existing partition. The new boot disk works ok.

I then tried to install my original boot disk as a slave disk so I could
try
to recover whatever I wanted from it. During the boot, I received many,
many
"File record segment is not readable" msg's and the boot took forever then
hung after all the msg's. I had to disconnect this disk and reboot. Is
there any way to recover information from my original boot disk? During
my
recovery attempts, I was able to run the recovery tool and look at the C:
drive, I expected it to work when I installed it as a slave drive.

I'm primarily interested in email and Hotfax fax/voice messages.

thanks.

I've had some success installing a drive like that as an external drive that
isn't powered on as the computer boots.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried bootmaster, they said the boot record was ok but the disk could not
be read.

The boot up "File record segment is not readable" msg's come from CHKDSK
which is invoked during boot for a damaged disk. Turns out CHKDSK can
further damage an already damaged disk.

They recommended the ontrack windows recovery tool. I contacted ontrack,
they require the damaged disk to be attached and the system booted. I cannot
boot with the damaged disk.

BootMaster support recommended I use BootMaster to flag the disk as "empty",
boot with it then use ontrac Data Recovery to read/recover the "empty" disk.
ontrac support thought this might work, I would need to buy a $199 license
to recover anything that can be seen by ontrac.

I'm nearing the end of the options, doesn't look good . . .

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I tried bootmaster, they said the boot record was ok but the disk could not
be read.

The boot up "File record segment is not readable" msg's come from CHKDSK
which is invoked during boot for a damaged disk. Turns out CHKDSK can
further damage an already damaged disk.

They recommended the ontrack windows recovery tool. I contacted ontrack,
they require the damaged disk to be attached and the system booted. I cannot
boot with the damaged disk.

BootMaster support recommended I use BootMaster to flag the disk as "empty",
boot with it then use ontrac Data Recovery to read/recover the "empty" disk.
ontrac support thought this might work, I would need to buy a $199 license
to recover anything that can be seen by ontrac.

I'm nearing the end of the options, doesn't look good . . .

As a last-straw option you could reboot the machine with a Win98
boot disk from www.bootdisk.com, then run ntfsdos.exe from
www.sysinternals.com. It allows you to read NTFS partitions
under DOS.