Re: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
The command to rewrite the master boot record w/o altering the partition table is FDISK /MBR. (The MBR is not normally written by FDISK unless no MBR exists at the time of partitioning; i.e., it's the first time a drive is being partitioned.) However, AFAIK, this is a DOS-only command, and if the drive has already been converted to NTFS (which does not use a DOS/Windows-style allocation table), all you may accomplish is to exacerbate a bad situation. If you have another system which groks NTFS (NT, 2000, XP), change the master/slave jumper on the trouble drive and install it as a slave in the working system to see if it can read the drive at all. If not, you are definitely going to need some third-party software to try to access it. If the only available testbed system is Win98/ME, go to Sysinternals at http://www.sysinternals.com/win9x/98utilities.shtml and download either NTFSDOS or NTFS for Windows 98 to perform the test. They're both free, at least the read-only versions are. That's all you really need in this case, so that'll be fine. WRT partition management tools, there are several major options available. Partition Magic, Partition Commander, Acronis Partition Expert, etc. None are free, and may not be a good choice for attempting to recover data, as their focus is on partition management: sizing, resizing, etc. There are high-powered administrator-level packages that claim to be able to recover files from dead volumes, etc., but they also come with a high-powered ticket price. Just how valuable/irreplaceable is this data, anyway? With USB external drives running less than a buck per gig nowadays, it only makes sense to back up all your essential data to an external drive before beginning a major, and potentially calamitous, OS change. And for future reference, if you find yourself doing this again with a drive containing an existing OS, I recommend first doing the upgrade, THEN converting the drive to NTFS. Any OS which supports it has the capability to do the conversion after installation, and that way if you run into difficulty with the install you know (a) that it did not have anything to do with the drive format conversion, and (b) that you can still access the drive using the tools you had available previously. The fewer the number of elements in a process, the easier it is to troubleshoot problems with that process if they arise. Cheers, Scott - Original Message - From: "Cheryl D Wise" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 6:10 PM Subject: RE: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem I've used that to recover some critical data before. It was a major pain but it did get the file I needed. I don't know how well it would work for recovering an entire drive. I have seen utilities that would repair a master boot record without killing the disk but I haven't need one in so long that I haven't a clue what the one I used in the Windows 98 days was called. There used to be a program called "partition magic" that would let you resize a partition without damaging the data then format and install the OS just on part of the drive. I wonder if Paragon's hard disk manager would do any good since you can boot off of a cd with it then work on the disk separately http://www.paragon-gmbh.com/f_fm.htm Cheryl D. Wise Certified Professional Web Developer Microsoft FrontPage MVP http://wiserways.com Office: 713-353-0139 -Original Messa Thank you! I woulds love to try that utility. It makes sense that it has a chance of working! Diane Ross Clutterbuck wrote: Diane: Sounds like the File Allocation Table might have gone the way of the Dodo but for the life of me I can't remember if it's possible to rebuild a FAT without killing the data. One thing I would suggest is try booting into pure DOS and see if you can read off the disk. I have a utility here called NTFSDOS which allows the reading of NTFS drives within DOS. I can e-mail it to you off list if you wish and see if you have any joy accessing the drive. I'll have a looksie around and let you know if I can think of anything. . The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM . To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. The WDVL
RE: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
Ooooh, h, I know!! We recently started exploring BartPE that you have to kind of assemble yourself but is really a version of Windows XP that allows you to view the hard drive. It isn't horribly difficult but you *NEED* a version of Windows XP to build the disk. It's not horribly difficult, just follow the instructions from the web site. http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ (The URL looks odd but it is legitimate) BartPE will then allow you to use USB devices to back up files as long as there is not significant hardware failure but then you probably wouldn't get a "BSOD" if it didn't see the drive. If that won't work for you, try Knoppix Linux. You can download the "ISO" image, extract it to a CDROM and boot from that. Knoppix will read an NTFS drive and has some USB abilities. http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html Hope this helps. - Todd -Original Message- From: Diane Schips [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 4:02 PM To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com Subject: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem I'm trying to help my parents with their computer. It keeps freezing. They were running Windows 98se, so I sought to upgrade them to Windows 200 prof. At the point where the OS starts looking for installed components, it freezes. Rebooting doesn't help, it just keeps freezing. I tried putting the hard drive in another computer. I get past the notification that it has been upgraded to NTFS, then I get the blue screen of death. If I try to use it as a slave, I get a message that it is unformatted. Nothing was backed up of course. Is there anything I can do to save the data? Diane The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: unknown lmsubst tag argument: '' To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
Re:[wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
Diane, boot the harddrive from another computer as a slave and try PC File Inspector (downlaod from the download.com) you should be able to get some data back (i am sure that you will lose some). it works for me last time. regards, Andrew Diane Schips writes: I'm trying to help my parents with their computer. It keeps freezing. They were running Windows 98se, so I sought to upgrade them to Windows 200 prof. At the point where the OS starts looking for installed components, it freezes. Rebooting doesn't help, it just keeps freezing. I tried putting the hard drive in another computer. I get past the notification that it has been upgraded to NTFS, then I get the blue screen of death. If I try to use it as a slave, I get a message that it is unformatted. Nothing was backed up of course. Is there anything I can do to save the data? Diane ?The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM ? To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with. ?The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM ? To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
Re: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
Diane & Cheryl This doesn't sound to me like a Master Boot Record failure as the drive cannot be read when slaved under a different OS. But Diane if you want to try it, from a pure DOS command line try fdisk /mbr on the drive in question to rebuild the Master Boot Record without damaging the rest of the drive. Whether this works for NTFS I can't say sorry :( Or maybe try the administration tools under NT4/2000/XP and see if they help. MOU The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
RE: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
I've used that to recover some critical data before. It was a major pain but it did get the file I needed. I don't know how well it would work for recovering an entire drive. I have seen utilities that would repair a master boot record without killing the disk but I haven't need one in so long that I haven't a clue what the one I used in the Windows 98 days was called. There used to be a program called "partition magic" that would let you resize a partition without damaging the data then format and install the OS just on part of the drive. I wonder if Paragon's hard disk manager would do any good since you can boot off of a cd with it then work on the disk separately http://www.paragon-gmbh.com/f_fm.htm Cheryl D. Wise Certified Professional Web Developer Microsoft FrontPage MVP http://wiserways.com Office: 713-353-0139 -Original Messa Thank you! I woulds love to try that utility. It makes sense that it has a chance of working! Diane Ross Clutterbuck wrote: > Diane: > > Sounds like the File Allocation Table might have gone the way of the > Dodo but for the life of me I can't remember if it's possible to > rebuild a FAT without killing the data. > > One thing I would suggest is try booting into pure DOS and see if you > can read off the disk. I have a utility here called NTFSDOS which > allows the reading of NTFS drives within DOS. I can e-mail it to you > off list if you wish and see if you have any joy accessing the drive. > > I'll have a looksie around and let you know if I can think of anything. The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
Re: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
At 05:01 PM 3/31/2005, Diane Schips wrote: I'm trying to help my parents with their computer. It keeps freezing. Can you override the windows boot (F8) and get a full file directory at the dos prompt? I believe there is also a way to run scandisk from dos, though haven't done this myself. If you can get to the dos prompt, even using a windows startup disk, maybe you can make backups on floppy of the important files, or write to a cd. I tried putting the hard drive in another computer. I get past the notification that it has been upgraded to NTFS, then I get the blue screen of death. If I try to use it as a slave, I get a message that it is unformatted. To see if the drive is usable at all I think you have to reformat; and first repartition. So trying to back up before this is a good thought. Nothing was backed up of course. With all due respect Diane how much data is on there that they can't live w/o? Is there anything I can do to save the data? You can try PC File Inspector - http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm. I used this once myself and it did a good job under the circumstances. Your situation sounds different, I think you're going to have to first install it as a non-bootable ide on a working system, then install this app on that system and see if it can find any data for you on there. The problem may become that it finds tons and tons of data. You need somewhere to put it, and if for example the file system's been trashed you may have to scan through lots of stuff to find e.g. a one page letter they wrote and want to keep. You may also be able to make an image copy of the disk - I'd think this would be possible although I'm not experienced with that either. I don't know much, do I? :) There are also co's that specialize in this kind of thing. The program I used was free, these companies afaik are expensive so it depends on the how important the data is. hth, Marty Marty Landman, Face 2 Interface Inc. 845-679-9387 Search & Sort Easily: http://face2interface.com/Products/FormATable.shtml Web Installed Formmail: http://face2interface.com/formINSTal The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
Re: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
Thank you! I woulds love to try that utility. It makes sense that it has a chance of working! Diane Ross Clutterbuck wrote: Diane: Sounds like the File Allocation Table might have gone the way of the Dodo but for the life of me I can't remember if it's possible to rebuild a FAT without killing the data. One thing I would suggest is try booting into pure DOS and see if you can read off the disk. I have a utility here called NTFSDOS which allows the reading of NTFS drives within DOS. I can e-mail it to you off list if you wish and see if you have any joy accessing the drive. I'll have a looksie around and let you know if I can think of anything. MOU The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
Re: [wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
Diane: Sounds like the File Allocation Table might have gone the way of the Dodo but for the life of me I can't remember if it's possible to rebuild a FAT without killing the data. One thing I would suggest is try booting into pure DOS and see if you can read off the disk. I have a utility here called NTFSDOS which allows the reading of NTFS drives within DOS. I can e-mail it to you off list if you wish and see if you have any joy accessing the drive. I'll have a looksie around and let you know if I can think of anything. MOU The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
[wdvltalk] Serious hard drive problem
I'm trying to help my parents with their computer. It keeps freezing. They were running Windows 98se, so I sought to upgrade them to Windows 200 prof. At the point where the OS starts looking for installed components, it freezes. Rebooting doesn't help, it just keeps freezing. I tried putting the hard drive in another computer. I get past the notification that it has been upgraded to NTFS, then I get the blue screen of death. If I try to use it as a slave, I get a message that it is unformatted. Nothing was backed up of course. Is there anything I can do to save the data? Diane The WDVL Discussion List from WDVL.COM To Join wdvltalk, Send An Email To: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] or use the web interface http://e-newsletters.internet.com/discussionlists.html/ Send Your Posts To: wdvltalk@lists.wdvl.com To change subscription settings, add a password or view the web interface: http://intm-dl.sparklist.com/read/?forum=wdvltalk http://www.wdvl.com ___ You are currently subscribed to wdvltalk as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: Jupitermedia Corp. Attn: Discussion List Management 475 Park Avenue South New York, NY 10016 Please include the email address which you have been contacted with.
