C Drive is blank!!
Hi,
Just got a user that tried to load Win98 and it started the boot process but said cannot find WIN.COM and bombed out at the DOS prompt.
DIR *.* /S /AH showed nothing at all in the C: - not even autoexec.bat - Strange!
Booted from a Win98 boot disk and then done a DIR C: and files were shown and the correct structure was there. At this point I should have backed up the system, but didn't - DOH!
I decided to do the following:
FDISK /MBR thinking the MBR was corrupted
SYS C:
Reboot. System now stays at C: Prompt and the only file is Command.com (except hidden files) which isn't what I wanted.
Booting from the floppy now shows the same and a ghost image the same again.
Heres the question. Is there anyway of getting the data back from a DOS prompt? The user thinks he has alread lost his data so if it can't be recovered not to worry, they should take backups anyway. I am thinking the FDISK /MBR would have made it so that even recovery utilties won't see the files.
Just got a user that tried to load Win98 and it started the boot process but said cannot find WIN.COM and bombed out at the DOS prompt.
DIR *.* /S /AH showed nothing at all in the C: - not even autoexec.bat - Strange!
Booted from a Win98 boot disk and then done a DIR C: and files were shown and the correct structure was there. At this point I should have backed up the system, but didn't - DOH!
I decided to do the following:
FDISK /MBR thinking the MBR was corrupted
SYS C:
Reboot. System now stays at C: Prompt and the only file is Command.com (except hidden files) which isn't what I wanted.
Booting from the floppy now shows the same and a ghost image the same again.
Heres the question. Is there anyway of getting the data back from a DOS prompt? The user thinks he has alread lost his data so if it can't be recovered not to worry, they should take backups anyway. I am thinking the FDISK /MBR would have made it so that even recovery utilties won't see the files.
ASKER
I may have hit the jackpot.
There is a trial version of this:
http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/
It has a DOS based File recovery which appears better than uneraser and at the moment is running through the HDD. It is 4% through and found 4000+ files. I just hope it can rescue them so there readable afterwards.
Should be done in about 1 hour.
There is a trial version of this:
http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/
It has a DOS based File recovery which appears better than uneraser and at the moment is running through the HDD. It is 4% through and found 4000+ files. I just hope it can rescue them so there readable afterwards.
Should be done in about 1 hour.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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ASKER
Well.
It did show the files but being a laptop it requires a different drive to save the recoverd files too and I don't have a desktop with the connectors for a laptop HDD at present so I'm still stuck.
Great software though.
It did show the files but being a laptop it requires a different drive to save the recoverd files too and I don't have a desktop with the connectors for a laptop HDD at present so I'm still stuck.
Great software though.
ASKER
My colleague has taken the HDD off site so we can slave it in a desktop machine and use R-Studio. Not sure how long it will take though, could be days as its a busy machine!
I was planning to use this hardware anyway providing that permission was given (hardware is at another company) so I am closing the post and giving H the points. Although his post hasn't helped me any further, he did try to help.
Cheers
I was planning to use this hardware anyway providing that permission was given (hardware is at another company) so I am closing the post and giving H the points. Although his post hasn't helped me any further, he did try to help.
Cheers
ASKER
http://www.uneraser.com/download.htm
It shows that there are files on the HDD but they are all symbols as if its serverly corrupted. Oh joy!