Hmm.. I am working on three machines and did not see that you already tried this... let me think while I start the install on this other machine. :)
FE
Main Topics
Browse All Topics
Loading Advertisement...
Question
Can't access my drive after fixboot in Recorvery Console XP.
Hi everyone.
My computer recently just crashed a few times, but restarts always helped.
This time restarting froze at the splash screen so I started in safe mode. Windows Recommended to start System Recovery, so I went along with it and tried to back-up the system to a previous restore point.
About half way done, the system just froze for hours. So I restarted, this time I get the message UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME.
I restarted in recovery console through winxp boot CD and did a chkdsk /p, /r etc. Always froze at 3% so I restarted and read around the net. At this time when I typed "dir" in the recovery console, my hard drive was still intact and it could see all of my files.
I read around the internet and people told me to do "fixboot C:" in recovery console. I did that and it said master boot record was corrupted, but it fixed it and said it was properly fixed (Don't know how it said it exactly).
So I typed "exit" and restarted the computer.
Now I get the message "NTLDR is missing press any key to continue". So I try to replace ntldr and the other file from the recovery console and it gave me the message "Access is denied"... I type "dir" again and it reports my HD as having only 10MB!. This is a 200GB drive with over 150GB of data. I took the HD out and setup as a slave in another windows XP computer and everything boots up fine but now the slave drive detected only 10MB as recovery console did in the original computer. And some weird name files with boxes and weird symbols as file names.
Now I'm at a dead end. I tried Western Digital's Data life guard tools, nothing worked. I'm sure my data is still on the hard drive somewhere and that fixboot messed up everything from seeing anything on the HD. How can I get access back to my data?
There is over 9 years of work and memories on the hard drive, this PC was used as the backup while I was restoring other computers. Now I can't get to the files that I need, documents, vacation pictures, anything...
Will someone please give me an effective way to get my data back behind this 10MB thing that keep comming up no matter which computer I put it on?
Maximum point amount is 500, but I think this is a question that can't be rated by points. I will give a significant larger number of expert points.
-Thank You
-John Liu.
This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.
Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get
Instant Access to this Solution
- Plus...
- 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
- Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
- Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
- Never be left without tech help again
Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.
- "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
- "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
- "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.
See what Experts Exchange can do for you.
Got a question?
We've got the answer.
Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.
Need individual assistance?
Our experts are ready to help.
If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.
Want to learn from the best?
Read articles from industry experts.
Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.
Working on a long term project?
Store your work and research.
Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.
Access the answers to your technology questions today.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?
Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.
Trusted by the world's most respected brands.
Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.
Try it out and discover for yourself.
30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.
Free Tech Articles
-
WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
-
SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
-
Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
-
Create a Win7 Gadget
This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
-
Outlook continually prompting for username and password
There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
-
Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...
Cloud Class Webinars
- Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
- Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
- IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
- Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
- Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
- How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...
Join the Community
Give a Little. Get a Lot.
Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.
Answers
You may need to use a third party utility to get your data back.. I have used GetDataBack successfully in these circumstances:
http://www.runtime.org/gdb
at this point you have to very careful what utilities you run on this drive, does the bios see the whole drive? It sure sounds like your mft and or fat table are corrupted. Any utils you run on this drive can make matters worse.
Try this
http://www.runtime.org/gdb
I would try this software, if it see's the data then it can get it back, the download is for view only version unless you pay then you get the read and copy version i have used this software on Novell netware and it is great. I am fairly sure that this can recover your data.
http://www.bitmart.net/dow
restorer 2000 does a good job
now when the drives slaved, in my computer how does the dive show up as 200gb or 10mb
Sorry, had to focus on this other machine.. and, you know, the debates...
Anyway, I have used that software successfully in the past. At this point, I believe it is your only recourse.... It is a safe way to look at any data that may (or may not) be on that drive. One neat feature of this utility is that it has a plug-in for BartsPE, a bootable Windows CD-Rom from the original Windows XP installation/setup CD. In other words, it is a bootable cd that provides its own operating system right from the image of the cd. From there, you can access any other part of the system, including the hard drives...
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilde
rascelon: Here are my drives
Floppy- A
HD1 (The good one with XP)- C
HD2 (The bad corrupted one I pulled out the other system)- D
DVD, CD, and USB drives listed on.
When you click once on "D" you'll see the chart on the left pane. 10MB. Right clicking on the D drive and going to properties, also tells you only 10MB. When you open the HD, You see weird files and folders with weird names containing strange symbols, only a few of them tho. And it reports on the status bar only 10MB. It's not a drive that's 200gb with only 10MB of weird data on it. Just a 10MB drive with strange files/folders.
Normally (before I used the fixboot command) it reported as normal as 186+/-GB as corrected formatted space... when it was normal.
Now it just seems after the fixboot, everything's unseeable. I'm just not sure if the software recommended in this forum will see the rest of the drive windows can't see anymore.
If this were me, and a client came and said that they must have the data back that was on the drive, I would immediately ghost an image of it before I did anything else. Once that is done, you can use the above to examine the image drive. There are more expensive solutions to getting this data, but like I mentioned above, you can use this utility safely. Why not dnload the software and give it a try..
I purchased my copy, but I think that the dnload will work and let you see your drive, but without a license key you will not be able to extract it.. I am not sure about this, but it is worth a try..
FE
Fatal_Exception is write backup the drive first and then try to recovery that data. I would recommend using a disk cloner that clones the disk block by block as the file system is damaged. i am not sure if ghost copies data that way, but there is a free program that does on the ultimate boot cd
www.ultimatebootcd.com
3 Ways to Join
Business Accounts
- Perfect for organizations
- Multiple users
- Save over 36%
- Create a Business Account
Answer for Membership
- Earn free access
- Showcase your knowledge
- No credit card required
- Sign Up to Answer
Loading Advertisement...
by: Fatal_ExceptionPosted on 2004-10-08 at 17:45:49ID: 12264545
If you have another computer around, take the hard drive out and slave it to the other system. Then move the data over.