Hi,
I normally leave my PC on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but about 2 weeks ago I woke up smelling something burning and since I had a side chassis fan that was starting to die on my PC I assumed it was cause and since is hardwired into my PS I shut my PC down and went back to bed.
Bad decision, as when I went to turn pc back on the next morning (as I had found out my wife had burnt a batch of cookies last nite after I had gone to bed) I got a SMART drive error saying my boot HD was bad and to press F4 but that just bypasses the recognition of that drive and can’t see it thereafter.
I then went into Bios and disabled SMART and now was seen and got thru post and my Win XP load screen displayed for ~ 5 sec (not std one, is an addon christmas one I installed prev so I assume that means it’s reading at least some of WinXP off HD) but then get a BSOD for a split second and reboots whole system back to the beginning so the BIOS starts loading again.
I tried loading this boot HD into another PC (which boots off a SAT HD), of course still have to turn off SMART checking in BIOS to see it (I set it’s jumpers up as a Prim Slave. (Oh and is a West Dig 80G EIDE HD). Butwhen I click on it in explorer it says it is unformatted. but how was XP partially loading off it then in other pc?
I by then had bought another HD to use as my new BOOT drive in pc that it had failed in and got XP installed, …
But I really would like to at least recover my MP3’s (~30G) or I wasted a lot of time ripping my CD collection to be on my PC and MP3 player (had to be on PC as MP3 player can only hold a Gig at a time so I change the mp3s freq;+(
I also would like to recover my shortcuts (as I had thousands set up as I like to run all the games I ever got over the 30 years I’ve been using computers, either by emulation (for my C128 or Z81 or CGA/EGA PC software) or (and this is why need shortcuts the most) or by setting up Shortcusts to cust load by mem/screen/res/compatibility settings and/or with commandline calls added to various utilities to slowdown, … so would take a year to rediscover the diff settings needed to make each of these thousands of programs to work on a pc that’s 30 years newer than their original technology.
I also would like to recover my Firefox browser bookmarks as I had hundreds of sites I visit weekly/biweekly/monthly and to Yahoo groups I participate in, w/o bookmark I can’t find them!
Also would be nice to get my old email and addressebook off as well.
A Lot to wish for but so far no luck, when I put the NG HD on my addon Ultra133 card as a slave, once got thru BIOS system couldn’t boot off new HD anymore, just got a black screen. When I put the bad HD on the Pri EID cable with the new boot HD and left setup as a slave, here it was seen and added as new hardware but once again says it is unformatted if look at in explorer ;+(
I tried downloading some free data recovery software and one (PC Inspector) sees HD but doesn’t seem to see anything on it. Another (don’t remember which as they’re at home and I’m at work) said MBR was OK and asked to fix MBF so I said OK and it sees ~10 random filenames with directory/location gobbledygook but if try to go to next page it just sits there (locked up, I probably should wait a little longer as someone in another person’s thread said ReadNTFS (this is not that prog but maybe this is typical with this type of recovery and why is so expensive) was incredibly slow. I also tried the ReadNTFS bootable floppy ( you have to make it) but didn’t boot off it so prog messed up in making the boot floppy before installed it’s own software on it? Or does orig software to make this ReadNTFS boot floppy have to be on a boot HD (as I put it in a temp folder on a secondary (non boot HD, which has no system files to grab?).
and SMART gave no warning was OK when turned PC off, was NG when turned back on. Only time PC was off was for a minute or so when rebooted weekly to clear out memory grabs by some of my old progs that weren’t written back then to always release it back when closed.
S.M.A.R.T. HDD monitoring is usually very accurate, however, it’s puzzling, that the HDD partially boots XP, so, the data maybe recoverable, but, i’m not really very good at data recovery, because, i’ve never had to do any (i use Linux)
for the future you could use Foxmarks to make an online backup of your bookmarks, it also make them available worldwide, so, you would have access to your from anywhere,
a good possible solution is: visit the HDD manufacturers website and download their diagnosis tools to run on the drive, they DO NOT destroy data without asking you & confirming that you agree, they usually give you an error code that will tell you what is wrong with the drive, then search google (or your fav search engine) to search for a possible solution to your problem, or, you could try Partition Saving
BTW: i can’t find any info on the pricing of that software
I think you can recover your partations. Before that you may connect your HDD to another computer as slave and use the software " HARD DRIVE INSPECTOR PRO" to find the actual status of your HDD. It is available from www.altrixsoft.com. It will give you almost all the current status of your HDD including the S.M.A.R.T details. From this you can know weather your HDD data can be recovered or not. If it is recoverable just try "MEETSOFT PARTATION RECOVERY" tool to recover your partations. This tool is available from www.finalrecovery.com. If you can access the HDD's partations while in slave mode then you may use "FILE RESCUE PRO". This tool is available from www.objectrescue.com. Goodluck for your recovery....
Well, I finally got NTFSReader for DOS to boot off a floppy.
Apparently you have to make the MSDOS bootable disk yourself and copy the ntfsreader.exe file onto it and run ntfsreader after boot off the floppy.
I was then able to check the root and it saw some system files and the folders in there (took close to a half hour tho ;(
I could then turn on long filenames and see my “Documents and …” folder
so had it check it also,
after another half hour I could see my “Administrator” folder (and others).
after another 1/2 hour I could now see my “Start Menu” folder!
I am now trying to copy it (my Start Menu)
I then got another surprise, apparently since it is a DOS prog it can’t WRITE to NTFS drives so when asks where to copy it to it gives you only options of FAT drives (which for a lot of people will only be the a: floppy drive nowadays)
BUT luckily for me, one of my 5 HDs is still FAT32 formatted (i never converted for some unknown reason, Thank God!). Unfortunately it is almost full, if I remember correctly I only have ~500Mb free on it but that should be enough room for my Start menu.
Should also be enough for my Firefox bookmarks if I go back up to root and drill down to find them. I think Firefox got put into Program Files dir which this NTFSReader had seen earlier when I was in root ;+)
Anyone know exactly what dir tree the bookmarks are in?
As each folder recovery in checking search will take half an hour!
I’d also like to recover (if possible) my emails and addressbook for Outlook Express.
Anyone know exactly what dir tree the emails (is it a pst file for Outlook Express?) and where addressbook entries (filetype/name?) are in?
Tho I’ll have to exit NTFS Reader to make room on that hard drive for the emails as that’ll be bigger but how much, if is still only tens of MB I may still have room and may not have to leave so may not have to restart NTFSReader and redrill down all over again! Maybe I’ll try that first if I can figure out where (or if someone here tells me ;+)
But I’ll definitely have to exit and make room on that FAT HD to recover my 30Gb of mp3s I ripped from my cds. But if it takes a half hour to just recover folder and filenames (~2K each), I hate to think how long it’ll take to recover mp3s @ ~4-8Mb each!
Of course I’m assuming that I AM able to recover ANYTHING. I’ll see when I get home from work tonite and see whether it choked or not on recovering my Start Menu.
what version of FF are you using ?
and what version of OE ?
Windows Address Book is in C:\Documents and Settings<Username>\Application Data\Microsoft\Address Book and i think it called something.wab & i think the file format is a text document (basically open it with a text editor like notepad)
Bummer, the Start Menu in Administrator had just template stuff, as well as Desktop there ;+(
Takes forever, takes 1/2 hour to move up dir trees per level as well!
In searching info on why, it sounds like it’s cause in Dos cannot use UDMA for HD data, has to use PIO which is a LOT slower, plus probably can’t use the 512Mb of memory either? As dos limited to 1M I believe unless you ran some Memory extenders?
The other issue is gonna be, yea it can read NG NTFS drive and see dirs and I can turn Long filenames on but when I copy, it has to go to a FAT drive and after it seemed to get hung up for 12 hrs+ on my User dirs Start Menu I assumed it was locked up (but maybe it just takes a real long time to find the 1000’s of shortcuts in dozens if not hundreds of folders I keep filed in) I rebooted my system into WinXP with new HD and looked at the FAT HD and it did copy the Administrator Start menu, … to it BUT in DOS 8.3 filename format! even tho I had long filename turned on and saw as such on bad NTFS drive ;+( That’ll defeat half my purpose of recovering these shortcuts as besides all the tweaking in getting these old progs to load and run I also put into the shortcut filename things like (Start=S,F=Fire,AltQ=Quit) as 20 years ago there were no standards so they’re all different. So I’d have to refigure that out for thousands of progs! I’d have to recreate years of work :+((
I really need to win the lottery so I can buy that external 1Tb HD for backup! of my 5 HDs.
Well I finally got the 2nd free disk recovery tool I mentioned in my 1st post to work!
It is TestDrive for DOS.
I installed it on my new boot HD and when I ran it it opened a DOS window and saw the old trashed 80Gb WD HD and selected that and then “Analyzed” and a few seconds later it lists ~10 folders from it’s root, this is where I couldn’t get any further before. But I have finally figured out how to move around on the HD and see folders and whats in them (and unlike NTFSReader for DOS it doesn’t take 1/2 hr to move up/down 1 level, just seconds! so is MUCH faster to recover with).
I managed to figure out how to copy and how to tell it where to copy to (tho never asks once you tell it, from then on whatever you choose to copy will go to the same drive/folder) AND once again unlike NTFSReader for DOS it saves these recovered filenames in long filename format AND can save onto NTFS formatted HDs not just FAT HDs!!!
So I’ve recovered my Start Menu, my grand-daughters pictures, my desktop and while I’m here at work it’s trying to recover my Program Files folder. Unfortunately it appears to be spitting up a few errors there so may not recover everything there but hopefully it will get Firefox there as I think it should be and thus hopefully my thousands of bookmarks categorized by subject matter I’ve collected over the last 5+ years.
Then I’ll have to get it working (and some will have to be reinstalled if put files into Windows folder somewhere or into Registry;+)
Which reminds me I will have to recover my Themes, screensavers and fonts in Windows folder as well.
I really really need to win the lottery so I can buy that 1Tb external HD for backing up my 5 HDs!!! But I have to buy a ticket 1st ;+)
Start Menu shortcuts
Firefox bookmarks
ripped audio cd mp3s
***The only issue with recovering files with this TestDisk for DOS seems to be the fact that if I try to run any recovered exe file it gives me an error window saying I don’t have permission, … but I’m running as an administrator, hmmm. So it looks like I’ll have to reinstall all the progs in my boot drive’s Program Files directory ;+(
The mp3s run fine, the jpgs display fine, the startup menu shortcuts work fine (if the progs were on one of my 4 other HDs and did not put something into the old, bad boot HD’s Window directory or the Registry.
I just can’t run any recovered executable files for some unknown reason.
So all in all, I’m happy with TestDisk for DOS (the price (free) was just right since I had to buy a new boot HD) and I will add it to my Emergency Arsenal ;+)
***The last things I’ll be on the hunt for are my Outlook Express’ Saved Emails file or directory and it’s Address Book of my Saved Email Addresses.
Whew, I can now see why they charge so much to recover data off a HD! It’s taken me ~150 hrs so far to find a useful, free Data Recovery program and to find and recover my Start Menu, Firefox Bookmarks, Pictures, Documents and MP3s. Granted they’d not be doing the searching for a useful Data Recovery program nor searching for specific data files, they’d probably just recover ALL the files that they could off the damaged HD and either put them on another HD or on a server that they’d make available to me but …
Well, I’ve recovered my Outlook Express Adress Book but can’t find my old saved/organized emails ;+(( anywhere I’ve rummaged on the trashy HD.
And still haven’t found why I cannot run ANY exe files I recovered, at least some should have been standalones! I also found I could not run my recovered screensavers, “.scr” files give me same cannot find/access error that recovered exe files are giving me ;+(