Need help to recover data

I urgently need help trying to gain access to my hard drive to copy some files that I need right away. I picked up the Internet Security 2010 virus today, and ran SuperAntispyware to try to get rid of it. After it was done running, I can no longer get Windows to start. It just comes up to the Welcome screen and sits there. In safe mode....the same thing. Can't even get a DOS prompt. At this point, I am not even interested in getting rid of the virus, I just want to get a couple of files off of the hard drive. Please help!!!!

 

Can't use last known good configuration or a restore point?? What O/S Can you make a bootable flash drive with a a lenix O/S and get into your hard drive I have done it with a flash drive ubuntu and unetbootin and get into the hard drive

 

Computer has Windows XP. I tried for last good configuration, and nothing happened. I never tried to make a bootable flash drive. What would I have to do to create one? I was wondering if I could take the hard drive out and put it in another computer as a slave drive just to get at the data to copy it to a flash drive. The computer I would be using has Windows ME on it. Do you think that would work?

 

Does your ME PC have a floppy drive and do you have any blank floppies?

 

Yes, the ME computer does have a floppy drive, and I have blank floppies.

 

Probably not. Windows ME is FAT32 and most likely your XP is NTFS. ME wouldn't be able to read an NTFS formatted drive.

Your best shot, if you do not have access to another computer running XP, is to boot a linux live CD, mount your hd, have a USB drive or stick attached to the computer and copy the files from your hd to the USB drive.

An easiser way would be to attach your bad XP hd through a USB port to another XP computer and copy the files from your hd to either the desktop of the other computer or another USB device plugged into the working XP computer.

Do you have a genuine windows disk? If so, you can do a repair install of windows.

 

I've not tested this method but I think it should work. Download ntfs4dos and install it on the ME computer. It will prompt you for a floppy and the write a bootable disk. [The bootable floppy will have NTFS4DOS on it which should allow you to see your XP files which can't be seen from ME]

So you would have to remove your XP HD from the XP computer. I am assuming IDE type HD, so you will have to change the jumper on the back of the drive from Master to Slave. Add it to the ME machine as slave on the middle connector on the IDE cable. Boot from your floppy. It should give you a list of all your HD/partitions [you'll have to read the sizes and drive letters since they may be different]. Then you should be able to move/copy the files you need from the XP drive to the probably C: (ME) drive.

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I think the other easy option would be a live Linux CD which would let you boot your XP PC from the CD and then copy your files to a USB flash drive. This would be a 700mb download for a user friendly version of Linux like Mint or Ubuntu. Puppy Linux is only about 100+mb but a bit more complicated to use.
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It depends how comfortable you are working with your PC. If slaving a drive is no big deal I would try the ntfs4dos (tiny download). If you don't mind a large download Linux Mint is a good CD to have around but you have to have a CDburner available to write the ISO file to CD.

 

I thought it might be a problem reading the xp drive on a ME computer. That kills that idea, I guess.

"An easiser way would be to attach your bad XP hd through a USB port to another XP computer and copy the files from your hd to either the desktop of the other computer or another USB device plugged into the working XP computer."
I do have another xp computer, and that sounds like a good option, but I have no idea at all about how to attach the bad XP hd to a USB port on the good computer.

The crippled computer has the OEM Windows install. I don't have the genuine Windows disk.

 

Sach2......All good suggestions. I think I will try the ntfs4dos download first. I'm not very comfortable doing any of this....I'm not all that experienced... but I am in desparate need of the 52 mg file I was working on as I have a presentation to make to about 70 people. What a terrible time for this to happen. In all the years that I have had computers, I have never been totally locked out of one as far as file access goes. I'm just lucky that I had just finished backing up the majority of my data last week with the intention of buying a new computer sometime soon.

The live Linux CD also sounds good. I will try that if I have any trouble with the first option. I might have to ask you for further instructions.

Thanks

 

That 2010 virus aka 2009 aka 2008 seems to be very bad and very prevalent. Tons of people seem to stumble upon it. What someone gets out of causing so much trouble I will never know.

The ntfs4dos should work but I haven't tried it copying an NTFS file to a FAT32 drive but I believe that it should be able to do it. ( I don't have any FAT32 drives). You will have to use DOS commands to change to the folders/directories with your files and the copy command.

The Linux Mint CD is simple to use. I used to see Linux and just dismiss it but they have come a long way. Once you burn the file to CD and boot it you get a Windows looking desktop. There is a computer icon that works just like My Computer. Browse to your files and copy them to USB flash. You don't have to know any Linux commands. Definitely an option if you have problems with the floppy. The download size is the only drawback but really only an hour or so on DSL.

 

Sach2......I haven't used DOS commands for quite a while, but I think I can still stumble my way through it.

Is there an older version of the Linux mint? When I go to the download page it says it is for the x64 Edition only. The download size probably wouldn't be a problem. I was just worried that I would have to know Linux commands.

 

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php Look for Main edition--Direct Download. It is an ISO file that has to be written to a blank CD as an image file using imgburn or similar burning application. It should load automatically to a Desktop recognize a USB drive if inserted and let you copy between drives. The Menu button at the bottom left is same as the Start button on Windows and gives you access to Firefox (your internet connection should already be recognized) and a few other programs like OpenOffice.

Basic DOS commands are:

[A>] C: or D: etc. to change drive letter
[A>] cd to change folder/directory
[A>] dir to get a list of file in a directory/folder
[A:] copy filename C:\filename (to copy file from current directory folder to C:\ drive)

 

Thanks for the link to Linux mint.!!! I'll download that tomorrow along with imgburn. I think I'll be able to manage some of the simple DOS commands......thanks for the examples. Reminds me of when I used to write some of those old batch files ....before Windows. LOL

 

Hey, don't make fun of batch files--they still work!

One caveat on using the Linux CD--it give you complete control over the XP drive so make sure you copy rather than move files. Don't delete anything from your XP drive or it will be gone for good. And remember you are working off of a CD so anything you put on your Linux desktop isn't really being saved it will be gone when you eject the CD. You want to copy files to a USB flash or a second HD/partition if available.

Good Luck!

 

As sach2 has said, Linux is now a very viable alternative to Windows, especially as a rescue medium, as BartPE (the XP boot CD) has very limited options compared to a Ubuntu CD (from my limited experience anyway). Most Linux distros (distributions) also allow you to boot from a CD or flash drive, whereas only XP (and maybe some before it) has been hacked (so not official) to run from a CD.

Try the LiveCD and if it works keep it as it may serve you again in the future.

 

Can't be emphasised too much! I've been helping someone elsewhere who was unable to boot either of his comps, but was able to use an Ubuntu live CD to get advice over the internet and rescue his files.

 

Unbelievable!!!!! The other computer that I was using last night to post my messages was hit by the same stupid virus!!! It's not as bad off as the first computer though. I haven't even tried to do any scans on that one until I can get my data from the other one. I needed to get something so I could do the downloads so I went out today and bought a new computer. Spent the day getting it set up. I did take the HD out of the other computer and I will be back to the drawing board tomorrow. Thanks for all of your suggestions. I will keep you updated.

 

I think that the live cd is gonna be your best option easier than creating a bootable flash drive good luck

 

I just wanted to thank everyone for the advice on how to recover my lost data. I went with the Linux Mint live CD. It worked perfectly, and I was able to copy all of my lost files to a flash drive. When my computers went down, a friend brought over his non-working computer (yeah, another project) and said that I could have it if I could fix it. It was another one that wouldn't load windows. I was also able to use the CD and copy a couple of files that he wanted. Now I have to get one of the two working. I've decided to just trash mine and try to work on the other one...it's much better than my old one. It's a Dell Dimension 8400 running XP. I've run into some problems trying to reinstall Windows, setup didn't find any hard drives on the computer. Bad hard drive?? I may have to jump over to a hardware forum for some advice. I've been reading that sometimes even installing another hard drive doesn't solve the problem. I'd hate to buy another drive and still not get it running.

Thanks again for your help. I thought I would never get my files back!!

 

The 8400 uses a SATA HD so when the Windows CD says press F6 to install SCSI/RAID drivers you have to do it.

Does your friend have the discs that came with the Dell?

I'm just letting you know what the problem probably is and that your HD is probably OK. You might ask for help on getting the SATA drivers in the Hardware section. Does that machine have a floppy drive? They will probably ask you that.

 

When you turn on the computer it says "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt. <windows root>\system32\hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file".

I have all of the disks that originally came with the computer. The message I get when I put in the operating system disk is "setup did not find any hard disk drives on your computer Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and properly connected to your computer and that any disk related configuration is correct". I have the drivers disk, but I never make it past the first screen telling me setup didn't find the hard drive. I see the drive just fine with the live cd. I thought it would be a simple task to just do a reinstall....no such luck.

 

If you have any working computer with a CD burning drive, and a blank CD, as you have the original CD you can create a bootable OS Installation CD with the drivers built in.

See here for more details: http://www.digitgeek.com/how-to-slipstream-sata-drivers-into-xp-cd/

Free program needed: http://www.nliteos.com/index.html

 

Collins| & sach2, Thanks for your suggestions, but I wasn't able to use the nlite. Only had a Windows Me computer that wasn't supported by the program and a XP computer that wouldn't go on line to install the version of netframework required to run the program. So I went hunting for other alternatives. I went into setup and changed the SATA operation from Raid Autodetect/ACHI to Raid Autodetect/AHC. Then I was able to go into the Recovery option on my Operating Disk CD. (Before that it has said that there was no hard drive installed). From there I ran chkdsk /r. Still couldn't boot after that and was still getting the hal.dll is missing or corrupt error. I then did a bootcfg rebuild. First screen up after that was a blue screen with stop error 0x0000007b(0xf89ce524,0xcooooo34,0x00000000, 0x00000000. After trying again with the same result, I shut down and went back into Setup. Changed the SATA operation back to Raid Autodetect/AHCI. Windows started up normally after that!!! I've only shut down and restarted a couple of times...I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I do notice that when starting that it takes a little longer than I think it should. Maybe something still missing.
As I said, this computer was given to me, and I didn't know what had been done to it before I got it. In the Recycle Bin I found a few files.....boot.ini, config.msi, system info.ini and a Common folder from program files....just to name a few.
I'm not sure what my next step should be. I'm hoping someone can give me some suggestions. Should any of those files be restored to where they were originally? It's also possible from some of the previous error messages that the hard drive might be failing. I know that the first thing I will do is use nlite to make an operating system disk with the SATA drivers on it.