NTFS drive is unreadable -- ALL experts please!

Try to use the GetDataBack for NTFS, http://www.runtime.org/. Very Useful

sorry for making this a two part awnser as I was a bid busy ........
there are other ways to fis this also but its always good to start at the basic ........
first check that the bios is picking up the hardrive.... if not change the primary settings on the harddrive ......
must also check that all the ribons are incerted correctly and that there is no skew pins in the brackets on the motherboard and the hardrive......

if it so happens that the problem wern't sovled by the above mentions methods then I would suggest that the user must boot from a win 98 cd and use the FDISK /MBR command to fix the the boot sector.....
but ultimately I would use the the fixboot command from the instalation cd as stated in my previous post.

Though when ever the pc is up and running the user must make a backup copy of his/her data as I found that if it happend once it will happen again

I went thru all of the links givin and saw that the following is the most closest in fixing the problems
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;153973 witch I already stated above as my selution

1. Use the other NT-System
2. Use DskProbe.exe from NT4-Resource Kit or from Win2000 Support
   Directory.
3. open physical drive ( the faulty one) read sector 0 and display as
   Partition-Table. Verify entrys.
4. If these entrys make sense go to first sector of  your ntfs partition.
   Display as NTFS Boot-Sector. If it is overwritten you can go to the
   last sector of the ntfs partition where you find a copy of boot
   sector. Copy it to sector 0 of your partition.
5. reboot.
6. check again in diskmgr.

I have found that when I have this problem in the past a simple scandisk on the drive usually fixes it.  Now the problem is that if the OS doesn't see the drive that has the problem it will either try to reformat it or something like that.  I have found that Windows XP does not handle this well.  However I have found that if the drive is installed into a machine with Windows 2000 then it will run the scan disk on its own most of the time when it boots.  I notices there is a problem with the drive and runs it.  Otherwise it will have to be manually initiated once the computer boots up.

Well I once fixed a problem like that by inserting the correct detail from the harddrive in the bios setup ..... very strange .......................................... but I can't see why it happens so much in xp ...... only one of my 2000 mechiens done this and I got it fixed in less then 10 minutes ..... but in xp I got it this month already twice
 an I would like to know why ???????

mcp_jon -- I said a solution needed to be found in the file system -- not using data recovery -- that is the problem, everyone is suggesting data recovery, when the problem should be solvable in the file system alone -- since NTFS created the hassles for these people, and everyone on EE is promoting NTFS, logically a person would not promote a file system that is flawed and cannot fix itself, would they?  That only makes sense, right?

tmireles -- You are restating part of the problem.  These issues occur with both 2000 and XP, in fact most of the questions coming in to EE are for NTFS disks made with 2000, not NTFS, but since the same issue perpetuates through XP, it is a file system error, not OS specific.  Almost everyone tries scandisk if they can, but part of the problem is that NTFS makes the drive unavailable to do anything with.

Lord ripper -- You tried the most, but you misunderstood the problem a little, I think.  These are NTFS disks that people have done absolutely nothing with the disk -- the partition table and boot sector was not fouled up, they did actually nothing to the data drive, except move it from one system to the other, or upgrade their own harddisk to XP and now the datadisk is unreadable.   And it is not a BIOS issue, the drives are all recognized fine at the BIOS level, and windows sees the physical disk, at the BIOS level, but it shows there is noting on it, or it is unreadable.

So, although you gave good information, it is not actually relevant to the problem, that people move an NTFS drive around or upgrade their system, and suddenly all or part of their data on the drive is gone.  This is a problem with the NTFS file system which no one seems to know how to fix on EE -- which is why everyone is suggesting data recovery programs, because they don't seem to know why NTFS suddenly trashes a disk.  So trying  partition table and boot sector fixes, as you suggested, can often make the problem worse.  It is a FILE SYSTEM problem, not a boot sector, partition table, or BIOS problem.

I think it is important that this question remain on EE's history, to show that no one did come up with the solution to these 3 common problems coming in to EE, as I stated above.  That explains why everyone is recommending data recovery, because they don't know how to fix the problem using the NTFS file system, or even if there is a fix or not.  There may not be a fix, I was just reporting a huge group of problems, as they came in to EE.  

If any of you want points, I can award them outside the scope of the question, because the suggestions don't fix the root of the problem, which is the NFTS file system itself.  Thanks for the effort.  If you want some points, just leave a very brief note, and I will post them in another question.  I will be closing the question.

I am not asking for the points but if you boot to a recovery console you can run a chkdsk on that and if that doesn't work to fix the problems you can through the switch chkdsk /F for force the fix.

That is what I meant.  I know that the problem goes from win2k and winxp and like I have said this is the method I have used to fix this problem.  Sometimes it works sometimes not but I can't hurt to try since it will do no real hard to the disk as the other suggestions.

firstly I want to try another phew ways to get the thing going befor you want to give points ......
Ill try them and post the selutions or the Ideas on how to fix it here ......

>>>>>>>>>    2.  A person has a complete backup of his data from a previous OS, like W2000, on a D drive, and he upgrades his OS to Windows XP on his main drive.  Now, on trying to get all the data from the D drive back, Windows says the disk is "unreadable", and he cannot see anything on the drive at all.  He goes into Disk Management, and it won't let him do anything with it. All his data is lost. As far as the user is concerned, his NTFS drive has "trashed" itself, when in reality, NTFS is the problem.  How do you fix this, without using "data recovery"?  Note, his drive might have been dynamic (not basic), that is another possibility, points will go to dynamic fixes additionally. <<<<<<<<

if I read thru this I would the question I understand that the person would have 2 harddrives. His secondary drive would have 2000 on and his primary drive has XP on ...... and now the user boots from the primary drive(XP) and now when he tries to to browes the other drive( 2000) he sees nothing....
this gives an indication that the hardrive with windows 2000 on is in anothe format like fat 32.... so he needs to convert it to ntfs ..... but if its already ntfs he needs to check his permitions on the drive although it will not be posible to change it and the user will be stuck with a disk that has files on and its not accesseble...... the best way is to boot from the harddrive with windows 2000 on and creat and network drive and copy all of the data to the drive and reboot from the harddrive with XP on and copy the data over to that harddrive........ or you do the following witch might help but it can cause a lot of problems and  would do this only if there is no other way and it is to log in as an adminestrator then go into the command prompt and set default user right by using the next commad
Secedit /configure /db %SYSTEMROOT%\security\database\cvtfs.sdb /Cfg "%SYSTEMROOT%\security\templates\setup security.inf" /areas filestore
then check the %windir%\security\logs\scesrv.log file to see what has changed ........

If it is that the user upgraded his windows 2000 to xp and he founds that he cannot access some of his data files it is more than likely that the file directory is corrupt ........ and that can be fixed by a scandisk.....

now if the user check his hard drive and it seems totally empty well then it can be that the permitions are wrong and all of the files are hidden makeing them totally invisible to any user ...... then you must use the above mentions steps again to try to fix the problem ....... but all of the methods above must be used with cuation and only by users that knows what thy are doing .....

now this ntfs problem is a real hassel to the IT departments and there is no real way to fix it ..... as when you think you got it going then you get error messages and so on afterwards..... surely MS does know about this and I hope that thy can either bring out an tool that can help guys like us to fix it or thy need to get a patch that fix errors like this ....... untill then its better just to use the data recover then most of the above mentiond ways ........ just recover the data and then format the drive and put the data back up ..... not onr of the fastes or quikest ways but it works. ........

I will have a chat with a phew Friends to see if thy know of a way to make it work 100%

PS ....... don't close the question now ....... as we might find a way to fix it and we can then also share some Ideas on withc causes this and It could just prove to work in the end .......  

LordRipper -- I'm closing this question and giving you the points for EFFORT ALONE.  In your post of yesterday, you might have been getting closer to a solution, I think, than previous posts -- but no, nothing anyone has said on EE has been able to solve the problem -- and forget MS, they will not even admit that this problem exists.

I am very surprised too that no one else even tried to answer this question, I'm kind of shocked, to be honest, that they don't seem to care (?) -- as if data recovery is good enough, instead of solving the real problem?  Anyway, you deserve the points for your EFFORT you have put in alone.  

Also, its ironic you put in so much effort, considering what you said about me to modulo.  I am really quite a generous guy, with no dislike of Linux at all.  I just came to EE to help people solve big problems like this.  It is just too bad some got so ticked at me trying to help.  Maybe you might consider retracting what you said to modulo about me, as none of it was true, and ask him to remove his comment on my profile.  I did nothing but try to help people in the short time I was here, I certainly do not deserve any criticism for anything.

Wishing you and everyone else the best.

ok..... yes I admid I was a bid hars ..... but I did not put any comment on your profile ...... or I might misunderstand ..... but Ill ask modula to remove it if there is any ...... I really did not ask for anyone to put any fouls or criticism to your name .....
please chek my profile and mail me the question number or the feedback url so that I can get it off.......

I actually wanted you to leave the question open...... now I'll ask the same question in the OS area to see if there is anyone that might now something about this ....... oif this is alright with you can I just cut and paste out of this section ..... ?????

I just wish that I had a little bid more time to awnser questions but ..... I am a bid busy ..... being a psychologist, trader, technical support, It support, and II 2nd in charge does take a lot of time .......
ps ...... little Tip......this month you better stack up the points becuase of next month I am back......

Regards
Rudi

No, Rudi, don't post this again -- let it die.  I only annoyed people by carrying on about NTFS's failings, I think they got upset at me, rather than at the issue -- so forget about it.  Maybe in a few months, you can think about it again.

I meant your comment in the community support area.  You will remember it.  I think what you said was so wrong, but it is up to you what to do about it.  Bye.

Though I am also a bid dissapointed in a phew xperts in EE ..... think that we must put the following in the community service area ...... and that is people or experts that just post links ......

the main reason I did join EE is not to go and check thru other websites but to come to a site that can give an straight awnser ..... though I asked a lot of programming questions ..... and well most of the time I got refered to other websites ...... I would say that an link may only be posted if the question were awnsered and the user wants to know more about the subject ...... then and only then a link should be posed

ok will have a look in the community supporyt and get it deleted .....
nice day ..... cheers

Ping.

Ok, I'm going to give this one a go. I'm not coming from an expert angle, but rather from one of those users who actually have had the problem. If anyone wants to simulate it, here's how: Have a slave drive on XP and backup all you need from your master as we are going to reinstall XP. Remove the slave and replace it with another disk containing the ASR backup files from a different XP. Bootup using XP cd and hit the function key for ASR. When you have a nice new operating system, a clone from the one you backed up, remove the slave and insert your original secondary hard drive. This will now be dynamic, unreadable. Thanks to Sciwriter for understanding that there is nothing wrong with this drive!

Now please understand that I could not wait for an expert solution, so here is what I did: Put the drive into a windows2003 server machine. It will complain about the foreign drive. Click ok to import the drive and seconds later you will be able to read it. Now simply copy the contents onto the 2003 server, then take your drive back to your XP machine and clobber it. Once you copy the stuff back, it can be read on your machine.

Don't laugh, its the quickest way to be up and running again. I hope that just by indicating how to duplicate the problem, it will help someone come up with a high-tech solution. For those who cannot get to someone with a 2003 server machine, please don't hate me. I was simply lucky to find a 'solution'...Ciao

LoTec --

Your "duplication" of this problem and "solution"  is way more complicated than it needs to be.

All you need do is take an NTFS drive to another person's computer (or reinstall the OS on your own system onto a different drive) -- and the original NTFS drive magically becomes unreadable.

It is a fundamental problem with the NTFS file system that no one at EE seems to understand IS an MS problem.  They all seem to think there is something "wrong" with the person's drive.

I had so much hassles trying to make the other "experts" on EE realize this, that I gave up and left.

Bye.

I can see the temptation to go "this correspondence is now closed", but the elegant solution is probably about to appear.

My contribution is the contention that the problem has gone away in Windows Server 2003. Any of those drives can easily be read on this OS, so someone at MS knows what's cutting even though it might not be politically correct to admit it. Can some guru not compare the difference in NTFS between XP and Server 2003?

Originally I suspected that it had something to do with MS not wanting its OS to be copied to different machines and having some clever way of checking that the configuration had changed.

Just a quick squizz at other forums shows just how topical this problem is. Don't give up now. Most of the greats were not appreciated in their lifetimes.

Cheers.
p.s. Am I being naive to expect expert contributions when no points are at stake any longer?