At the verge of loosing my 94gig partition!!!
- John Cooper
- Moderator
- Posts: 1182
- Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: Planet Z
- Contact:
The only effective backup strategy I've found is to buy a 2nd hard disk the same size, put both disks into removable "trays", and use "ghost" to completely dupe the entire disk. Then if you EVER have a problem, you swap back the prev disk, copy what you need (or dupe the entire disk back), etc.
Disk problems = no fun! Good luck man!
-John
Disk problems = no fun! Good luck man!
-John
Hi,
I had something similar happen to me a couple of weeks ago, although the actual drive died (IBM Deskstar!). Fortunately I only lost OS partitions, so nothing major that I hadn't backed up. However, while I was trying to recover anyway, I discovered that Norton Ghost could copy partitions. This meant that, since the disc that had broken would spin up for a little while, I could copy the data (not in a particularly good state) and recover at least some of it.
Also, XP/2000 auto-recovery should do the job if you've just got a problem with your MBR. Just put the install disc in and boot from that. Either use the recovery console, or let it do it automatically.
Good luck,
Will
I had something similar happen to me a couple of weeks ago, although the actual drive died (IBM Deskstar!). Fortunately I only lost OS partitions, so nothing major that I hadn't backed up. However, while I was trying to recover anyway, I discovered that Norton Ghost could copy partitions. This meant that, since the disc that had broken would spin up for a little while, I could copy the data (not in a particularly good state) and recover at least some of it.
Also, XP/2000 auto-recovery should do the job if you've just got a problem with your MBR. Just put the install disc in and boot from that. Either use the recovery console, or let it do it automatically.
Good luck,
Will
- kensuguro
- Posts: 4434
- Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: BPM 60 to somewhere around 150
- Contact:
I have a hunch that scandisk /f ruined whatever that was intact by trying to fix thing with the wrong MBR.. shew.. I wonder what's up with my files. They seem to be there though.. Man, this is adventurous.
I'll be looking into quickly buying the norton package to see if that'll do any help. I was able to get an image of the partition (with a utility called R-Studio) only to find that the files were already corrupted. hmm.. doesn't look so good.
Seems pretty clear now that the MBR was mistakenly written with the crash. If only there was a way to reconstruct the MBR... I'd hope norton utils will do this, but I won't keep my hopes high.
I'll be looking into quickly buying the norton package to see if that'll do any help. I was able to get an image of the partition (with a utility called R-Studio) only to find that the files were already corrupted. hmm.. doesn't look so good.
Seems pretty clear now that the MBR was mistakenly written with the crash. If only there was a way to reconstruct the MBR... I'd hope norton utils will do this, but I won't keep my hopes high.
- paulrmartin
- Posts: 2445
- Joined: Sun May 20, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: Montreal, Canada
Hi Kensuguru
I just searched thru a hardwareforum that I moderate, to see if I could find anything usefull for you. Here is a list of programs, that some people mention for getting data back:
GetDataBack
R-Studio
^- these where mentioned in a thread, where a person had formated the wrong partition. He fixed it with Norton.
Another user had lost acces to a 160GB drive. He could see the content with windows explorer, but he could not acces it due to some disk error. The following 3 programs where mentioned:
File Revial
Un Eraser
RestoreIT
The user regained his data with R-Studio
Another user had a 160GB hard drive, that he could not acces. He got the message: "This hard drive is not formatted. Fortmat y/n?" He chose n (no) and regained 98.99% of his data R-Studio.
I hope some of it helps you. It is generally adviced NOT to defrag a hurt hard drive.
I just searched thru a hardwareforum that I moderate, to see if I could find anything usefull for you. Here is a list of programs, that some people mention for getting data back:
GetDataBack
R-Studio
^- these where mentioned in a thread, where a person had formated the wrong partition. He fixed it with Norton.
Another user had lost acces to a 160GB drive. He could see the content with windows explorer, but he could not acces it due to some disk error. The following 3 programs where mentioned:
File Revial
Un Eraser
RestoreIT
The user regained his data with R-Studio
Another user had a 160GB hard drive, that he could not acces. He got the message: "This hard drive is not formatted. Fortmat y/n?" He chose n (no) and regained 98.99% of his data R-Studio.
I hope some of it helps you. It is generally adviced NOT to defrag a hurt hard drive.
- kensuguro
- Posts: 4434
- Joined: Sun Jul 08, 2001 4:00 pm
- Location: BPM 60 to somewhere around 150
- Contact:
I found the solution. It had to do with the fact that I was using a 200Gb drive connected to Promise's Ultra100.
Anyhow, it turned out that XP had replaced my Ultra100 drivers with older (non 200Gb compliant) drivers, and so I couldn't access the partition that was over the 160Gb(was it?) limit of the older drives. The data appeared corrupt, but everything was still there in place. Just "seen" wrong from XP.
So, after hassling with a bunch of tools, I replaced the old drivers with new ones, and everything was back to normal. Sheww!
Anyhow, all is cool now. Thanks for everybody's concern!
In the course of looking for disk utilities, I've tried:
R-Studio, which could see the files, could make an image of the non-seeable partition, but could not recover files from it.
Norton Utilities which pretty much didn't do much because basically, XP couldn't see my drive. Seems like a good solution if you have general problems tho.
Test Disk was pretty direct and very logical. It can write straight to your MBR. Also, it can scan for previously existant partitions. Free.
Just as some reference, here's how the partition table thing works.
Partition table is stored in MBR.
Partition table consists of where a partition starts, and where it ends. So there are 2 entries for each partition. (the start and end)
When these numbers don't match with each other, or don't match the preceeding or following partition, you've got trouble. Also, the partition info may not match the Disk Geometry Information.
In either case, you can manually edit the parameters.
There was also an interesting site called bootdisk.com where you can find self extracting images of install disks and bootdisks for various OSs. Could be useful if you don't want to go through the hassle of making bootdisks. (back to the config.sys and autoexec.bat editing days)
Anyway, I'm just so glad I got all data back 100% intact. I must be personally blessed by God himself or something. lol
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-04-10 15:59 ]</font>
Anyhow, it turned out that XP had replaced my Ultra100 drivers with older (non 200Gb compliant) drivers, and so I couldn't access the partition that was over the 160Gb(was it?) limit of the older drives. The data appeared corrupt, but everything was still there in place. Just "seen" wrong from XP.
So, after hassling with a bunch of tools, I replaced the old drivers with new ones, and everything was back to normal. Sheww!
Anyhow, all is cool now. Thanks for everybody's concern!
In the course of looking for disk utilities, I've tried:
R-Studio, which could see the files, could make an image of the non-seeable partition, but could not recover files from it.
Norton Utilities which pretty much didn't do much because basically, XP couldn't see my drive. Seems like a good solution if you have general problems tho.
Test Disk was pretty direct and very logical. It can write straight to your MBR. Also, it can scan for previously existant partitions. Free.
Just as some reference, here's how the partition table thing works.
Partition table is stored in MBR.
Partition table consists of where a partition starts, and where it ends. So there are 2 entries for each partition. (the start and end)
When these numbers don't match with each other, or don't match the preceeding or following partition, you've got trouble. Also, the partition info may not match the Disk Geometry Information.
In either case, you can manually edit the parameters.
There was also an interesting site called bootdisk.com where you can find self extracting images of install disks and bootdisks for various OSs. Could be useful if you don't want to go through the hassle of making bootdisks. (back to the config.sys and autoexec.bat editing days)
Anyway, I'm just so glad I got all data back 100% intact. I must be personally blessed by God himself or something. lol
<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2003-04-10 15:59 ]</font>
-
- Posts: 624
- Joined: Sun Jan 06, 2002 4:00 pm
- Location: germany, east