hard drive problems

posted this in software without thinking

ok here it goes
I thought i was merely loading a driver for a cable to interface with my cell phone (i didnt get this online or anything. got it from the cell phone company). It said i needed to reboot so i did. upon reboot, it just stoped in the middle of booting up never made it to windows at all? I tried rebooting some more, but to no avail

so i had an older hard drive and thought i would boot up with that so i could maybe look at the other hard drive and see what might be going on. but the old hard drive had windows 95 and the fried one was XP. But it wouldnt recognize the one not booting up, wasnt sure but thought i remembered something about the two systems used different languages or something like that.

so i got a cable to hook up to the hard drives from my new computer thru USB and when i hook it up to the unworking one i get a "file paging error"

i got some stuff i want on the hard drive. is it pretty much useless to try to get it back anymore?

 

Did you try booting to safe mode?

Press F8 as the pc starts.

Studio T

 

would if i could, but it doesnt even recognize the drive so it doesnt even get to that option

 

You need to post more detailed information about your system. Connecting extra things to an already failed system won't help.

Do you have your original XP CD?
Do I also understand you have got the pc working using Win95?

FYI
Of the many ways of organising data on a drive, known as filing system, Win95 uses one called FAT and can't read or recognise the one used by XP, called NTFS. So using Win95 to fix XP is a non starter.

If the system was working before attempted software installation you should be able to recover using the built in facilities in XP and an XP CD. Borrow one if you have lost yours any one will do for recovery as opposed to full reinstallation.

This would be your best bet if you do not have access to another system running XP or Win2000 and will allow you to recover your data.

Let me know if you can do this and I will post more help.

Studio T

 

yes i got the system to boot up using the windows 95 hard drive, and was excited about that until i remembered the filing system thing (didnt remember what version i had until i booted it up)

thought i would be able to get what i needed with my other computer but when i hook the cable up to the HD i get that file paging error

 

So have you got an winXP CD?

 

yeah,
but dont i need to make the recovery disc from it or something like that

 

With the XP hard drive connected as master, start the pc an go to the bios (setup) by pressing del or F2 or whatever immediately.
Make sure that the boot sequence is CD floppy HDD save and exit.
While the pc is running insert the XP CD.
Reboot
Watch and athe the prompt ? press any key to boot from CD press any key.
XP setup runs.
press enter to setup windows now DO NOT press R
press F8 to accept licence
The next screen shows XP installations
highlight yours and press R
The repair install proceeds for about 45 minutes.
If XP asks for the key read in the one off the side of the pc not the one off the disk. (some e.g. Dells don't ask I've just done i today for 2 dells)
You will have to reinstall SP1 and or SP2 if your disk is old
Some programs will work some will need reinstalling.

Studio T

 

the XP disk that i have is not for the computer that is all to hell.
does that make a difference?
the disk that went with the computer that is down is MIA

 

So with the spotlight on the tiger is really a pussycat.
What have you got to loose, greenhorn?
And what's the point of starting your computer with someone else's XP drive?

Studio T signing off on this one

 

You know, I'd like to help, but this thread is REALLY confusing and hard to follow..... :banghead:

 

confused didnt think i was that confusing.....but apparently i was.....sry

i just want to get on the hard drive to get some info off it, i dont want to wipe it out.

 

Sorry, Greenhorn I thought I'd mentioned that any XP CD will do so long as it is the same version (home or pro) as the failed installation. Note I mean a microsoft disk not a manufacturer's recovery disk.
I did say this but I was late and in another thread, once again sorry.
The hard drive must obviously be the one from the failed pc.
You must make sure that boot from CD precedes boot from hard drive or you will never get to windows setup. This is the reason for the first part of the instructions.
You should have all you need to complete the mission now.

Studio T

 

PS
A repair install does NOT destroy the data.

 

hey studiot thank you for not giving up on me
i got the blue screen of death to stop so i could read it and it said i had this problem:
UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
just thought i would pass that on

the XP disk i have is a system disk (DVD) for a gateway. i put it and am running it but it doesnt give me any of the options that you posted. it only wants to do a system restore? and it says that everything in the user partition will be lost, and that the original factory -shipped files will be recovered to the user partition? does that sound right?

 

A manufacturer's recovery disk is not a microsoft windows disk. It contains a bit by bit copy of the hard drive as loaded at the factory plus the software to copy it bit by bit back onto the hard drive. This is known as an image and the process is what Gateway call 'do a system restore'. Bit by bit copying is not the same as installing. This method is convenient for several reasons but has the disadvantage that the machine has to be physically identical to the factory state and also, as the copying software warns, everything currently on the drive will be overwritten. So I'm sorry but that CD will not do.

Unfortunately the other recovery methods are only available from a microsoft WindowsXP CD, can you not borrow one from a friend?

Alternatively you could try to download a bootdisk from (suprisingly)

www.bootdisk.com

This clearly depends on what other resources you have available.

At least you have been able to get the pc to boot from CD so there is hope yet.

Studio T

 

Hi there, If you have XP on another computer, and a spare IDE connection, you can set the old drive that you want to read off, as slave, -start up, and press start, right click my computer, then left click manage, then left click disk management, and you should be able to see your drive, as a seperate drive.
Right click, on your old drive, click explore, and go to the folder you want, and copy to the computer, in a new folder.
Let us all know how you get on.
baklogic

 

hopperdave2000, it's no wonder this thread is confusing. We don't know what problem we're wrestling with, so we're all over the shop.

Greenhorn, are you saying that the BIOS does not recognise the main hard drive, or only that you can't boot from it? At what point does the boot process stop? And what error messages come up?

The difference is crucial. If the drive is not recognised by the BIOS, it will not be possible to access it by any means. It's usually a hardware problem when that happens. The BIOS will usually throw an error message that reads "Primary hard drive failure" or something of that kind.

If the drive is recognised by the BIOS but won't boot, it's usually a software problem. The BIOS will usually throw be an error message of some kind that will indicate where and why the boot process failed, and will therefore help to identify the cause of the problem.

Some problems will require a re-format and re-install (with loss of all data); some may require a re-install (in which case, it may be possible to preserve the data); and some may require only a repair. So what's the error message we haven't got?

 

this is what i get (the attachment below) when i try hooking it up to my good computer.
it recognizes it, it just doesnt want to read it

UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUME
i get the blue screen of death right after the initial winXP shows up on the screen, with the above message.

 

I take it you tried explore, and not open ?
The only other way that I can see that might enable you to read it would be with a free download, like NFTS READER, which you should find amongst Majorgeeks.com.downloads.to save you wiping it, and losing your data.
You said that the 'unmountable boot menu ' came up.A program called disk wizard, can rebuild the boot, but might not save your data. You might like to have a look at PCbeginner, utilities suite at www.PCbeginner.com.as it is part of a most helpful Hard Disk remedy suite.
Keep us posted.
Also, Remember the advice , from Rob M, AND, Studiot.

 

yeah....i tried both actually, and both gave me that same message...
dont have time to try anymore today, but i have 1 more question before i go.
the bootdisk.com and the microsoft website offer the 6 disk boot dowload, can/do you put that on a CD. Im totally in the dark here.

thanks again in the mean time everyone for your help and studiot for sticking with me thru the confusion.

 

The download to 6 disks replaces the need to boot from cd, the six floppies you create go in the floppy drive, in order 1 to 6, and off you go.
No need to create a cd.
Good luck.

 

Now we've got some information I think we can work with. It looks like your drive is probably healthy, but has a software problem. Double-check by running the drive manufacturer's diagnostics on the drive. You can usually get a disgnostics package from the drive manufacturer's website.

But we need a little more information for context.

Your thumbnail showed three partitions. Can we assume that J: is the only partition on the drive that's gone sour? Can we assume that the C: and D: drives shown are partitions on another drive (i.e., the primary drive on the system that you mounted your drive in to look at it?)

If those assumptions are accurate, it would seem that we can assume that your drive (the sour one) has only the one partition on it -- or are there other partitions on your drive that are now MIA entirely?

I see that the info for J: does not include a filesystem. That suggests to me that something has corrupted the master boot record and/or partition tables on the drive, with the result that the system the drive is now mounted in cannot determine what filesystem is installed on it. As baklogic has suggested, sometimes it's possible to repair damage of that kind. If not, you'll have to re-install the filesystem (i.e., format the drive) and then re-install your operating system and application software, then recover your data from whatever backups you have.

The above is based on the assumptions I identified above. Please confirm them before you take any action on my suggestions. And bear in mind that there are probably other problems that could account for the symptoms you have described.