Recover files from crashed laptop

It is really up to murphatoid. A bad HD is a bad HD. If you think chkdsk can repair the filesystem that could one thing but with no ability to run the Vista CD I'm not sure what chkdsk can accomplish?

I'll just give instructions to set the recovery partition as Active. We might as well see if it boots and gives an option to recover. It should have an internal check to make sure the necessary files are present.

From Puppy go to Menu>System>Gparted. Run it with the defaults.

You should see two partitions. The first one should be about 9gb. Right-click it and select Manage Flags. Untick the Hidden box and Tick the Boot box.
Then right-click the large partition and select Manage flags and make sure that Boot is Not ticked.
Then exit gparted and restart the computer with no CD.
See if you get recovery options. Let us know.

Edit: It looks like something is amiss with those partition sizes in ntfs4dos.

 

Is it normal for Gparted to take a long time to find the partitions?

 

2 or 3 minutes usually. Just a bit longer than you might think.

 

10 minutes longer than I might think?

 

Way longer. Really should only take a minute.

Real quick just let me know what Menu>System PDisk Partition>Choose sda1 at the bottom of window Then Cfdisk. It should list your partitions. What does it show?

Oh, after hitting cfdisk it was immediate for me.

 

Gparted has just kicked in, just going to finish your original instructions....

the hidden box isn't ticked, the diag box is. Untick that?

 

oops, twitchy trigger finger, pressed ok without unchecking diag, now the box is greyed out. Can't right click on large partition to untick boot.

edit. I need to throw the towel in, it's really late, my concentration has gone. Will it explode if I close Gparted mid process?

 

Diag doesn't matter just make it Boot. Checking the large partition to make sure it is not still Boot is just a precaution--Gparted should automatically make sure only one partition is set to Boot at a time.

No just close gparted and it will ask if you want to quit without applying changes just say yes.

 

God it doing everything sooo slooowly.

It was looking very positive, said windows was loading files, now it's a black screen with a cursor arrow on it, and has been for some time.


need to go to bed, it's nearly 3 o'clock, I'll try it again in the morning.

Thanks again for all your help.

 

Good night! We'll see what it looks like in the morning.

 

Morning!

Rebooted from the recovery partition, same result as last night. Looked like it was working and then stopped at a black screen with the cursor in the middle............no! OMG! As I was typing it's gone a bit further, now I've got 'please wait a moment'. How exciting! :-D


Stay tuned...................

Right, system restore is not there as an option so I've clicked on factory settings, we'll see what happens.

 

Oh I got so excited then

'restore failed - reason 0xa0000001. Click ok to restart the computer'


So...........shall I buy an Acer disc or a retail one? Or a new hard drive?

 

I forgot to say, before eRecovery got to it's main menu there was an error window 'cannot find file C:\D2D\Images\*.WSI when trying to detrmine UI language'.

Don't know if that's relevant.

 

I suggest that you test the hard drive: It may have a problem, in which case it would be useful to know that before you go to the trouble of re-installing an operating system on it.

It is best to use the hard drive manufacturer's own diagnostic utility, but Seagate's tool will work OK on most brands. The diagnostic tool is run from a bootable CD (Windows does not need to be working).The first two steps are done on a working computer, while the third step is to boot the ailing computer with the CD that you create in the first two steps.

Step 1: Please download SeaTools for DOS (CD) from Seagate's SeaTools for DOS web page

• 
  or use the following direct download link to download the latest version of SeaTools for DOS:
  Download SeaTools for DOS ISO Image
  • 
    The downloaded file name is SeaToolsDOS223ALL.ISO

Step 2: Burn the downloaded .ISO image to a CD using the appropriate burning software.

• 
  If you do not already have a suitable burning program for writing .ISO images to disc ...
  • Download and install ImgBurn.
    Ensure that you UN-check the box agreeing to install the Ask toolbar during the installation.
  • Place a new (blank) CD disc in the drive tray.
  • Choose Write image file to disc.
    • Under Source, click on the Browse button: Navigate to and select the .ISO file that you wish to burn.
    • Place a check-mark in the box beside Verify.
  • Click http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d183/AustrAlien_1952/Computer%20Support/imgburnwrite.jpg
    
    When the CD has been burned and verified as successful, it will be bootable.

Step 3: Boot from the CD.

• 
  (You may need to access the BIOS Setup Menu or the Boot Menu and change the boot order to enable booting from CD before hard drive.)
  
• From Basic tests on the Main Menu, run the Short test and then the Long test.
  • 
    (The long test will take some considerable time to complete.)
    The results will be shown as either a PASS or FAIL.
    There is a chance that during the Long test, you may be offered the opportunity to attempt repairs on the hard drive:
    • If so, go ahead and attempt to do so, but ONLY after backing up all important personal files.

Note: You may wish to view the following ...

• Learn more about SeaTools for DOS. (view a 24 page pdf document)
• See the tutorial on the usage of SeaTools for DOS.

Please let us know the results of the tests.

 

Hi AustrAlien,

Thanks for that, I'll get on with it after I've taken my poor neglected child to the park.

 

Checking the HD for errors makes sense.

I think that one other thing we should try before ordering any discs is going back to Puppy and removing the diag designation on that psqservice drive. Then trying the restore again. From what I have read that gives that partition a different type (012 rather than 07) which might make a difference.

So in gparted set psqservice as boot and remove the diag flag. Apply changes and try restore again.

 

Hi sach2,

I did that already just in case. One thing though, should either of the partitions be mounted in Puppy, or doesn't it matter?

 

I'm not sure of the mounting or if that changes things. I noticed when I was using gparted that I could not hit the Apply button after removing the diag flag. I'm going to go back into Puppy and try a couple of things.

I'm reading this. Rather than delete any partitions in case your non-working Vista partition is still there I want to see if just changing the partition type might work. That other partition manager Pparted or whatever allows changing by number ID but I want to test it before having you use it.

 

If you've already changed the partition type I'm not sure it will make any difference but it can't hurt to make sure it was changed. Gparted doesn't seem to require the Apply button.

Try Menu>System>PDisk>SDA>Fdisk> type in the command P and then hit <enter>

How many partitions are listed (sda#) and what ID#s

Is sda1 set to boot(*) and is it ID 7
Any other sda#'s and IDs

 

sorry, got distracted. I'll try it in a bit.

 

Right then, back at it.

2 partitions are listed, sda1 = 12 Id and sda2 = 7 Id

and no, sda2 is set to boot.

No other sda#'s or Ids

 

That looks right after the restore things are set back to default.

So let's try another restore to see if anything changes.

So back after the P command.
At the Command (m for help) prompt: type t and <enter>
Type in 1 for the first partition and hit <enter>
Then 7 for ID and hit <enter>
Type a to toggle boot on. <enter>
Type 1 for first partition <enter>
Type p <enter>

Check that partition sda1 has an asterisk for boot and is partition ID 07
Type in w at the Command prompt.
Window should close and then try the recovery see if you get the same error.

 

ok, both partitions are *'d and at 7. Is that right before I go any further?

 

No you want to take the asterisk off of sda2. (It should have been automatic)
Just type a at the prompt and then choose 2

Then do a P and check that only sda1 is bootable.
Then do the w to write the change.

 

got the same initial error about UI language and now it's frozen on restore system to default, not looking good then.

 

Still frozen on the eRecovery menu, Shall I leave it or try and exit? Reboot again?

 

Go ahead and see what you get when you reboot.

If you get the black screen with movable cursor try two things ctrl+alt+del to see if you get task manager and if not hit the left shift key several times rapidly and let me know if a window pops up.

 

Rebooted, it's just gone back to the original windows failed to start blahblah screen.

 

It looks like recovery never started then. One thought did you always change diag to unticked or did you ever try it with it still ticked? I'm wondering if just changing the boot flag on sda1 to on and leaving it marked diag would make any difference?

 

I think I did both, I'll try it again to be sure.

 

I'm just not sure what is going on. I think the error "cannot find file:C:\D2D\Images\*.WSI" would indicate that booting to the sda1 partition in Windows assigns a different drive letter to that partition. So when it goes to find the .WSI file it is looking somewhere other then sda1 where the file is located.

The question is how to set that drive as C: which I assume the recovery discs do?

Your Vista disc absolutely won't run after several attempts?

 

Well, I ran it 5 times I think. Only one got as far as a menu and then froze. I can try again.

Gparted was on a go slow again, It wasn't earlier when both partitions were mounted, so I thought I'd mount again them and see what happened. I right clicked on sda1 and launched Run Pmount Puppy drive mounter and got an error

"NTFS warning.
The NTFS-3g driver was unable to mount the NTFS.
Failed to write lock '/dev/sda2': resource temporarily out of order,
Error opening '/dev/sda2': resource temporarily out of order,
Failed to mount '/dev/sda2': resource temporarily out of order.

So the in built kernel NTFS driver has been used to mount the partition read only"

I seem to remember it did that when I first opened sda2 to retrieve my lost files.

Relevant?


edit. as for the vista disc, It got as far as the blue Vista splash screen with a cursor and is stuck again. Shall I do ctrl+alt+del ?

 

It sounds like a chkdsk is in order. Sorry, Australien

I'm unsure if the SeaTools will do anything with the filesystem. And I think that Vista requires the Vista disk. If you have an extra CD around you could try the win7 disc to see if it will boot. I'm not sure if it will give an error about wrong OS or not.

 

Update. The Vista disc got as far as 'install vista.............[or]repair windows',
clicked on repair. Now I've got a window asking me to select an operating system to repair, but there is nothing on the list. Underneath the empty list (!) it says 'if you do not see your OS listed, click Load Drivers to load drivers for your hard disks.

Oh and yeah happy to try win7, nothing to lose?

 

At that screen just click next don't worry about drivers. You should get a list of 5 options so choose command prompt. Type in chkdsk C: /r see if it will do a chkdsk.

 

Oh bugger, clicked on startup repair already. Oops.

 

That is fine, see what happens. If it doesn't automatically restart try the chkdsk. Otherwise, see if it boots without the CD then try to boot the CD again. It may find the installation and offer repair again let it.

If you get back to the list try the chkdsk and when that finishes you may be able to try System Restore from that list.

 

Ok, it says it might take up to a hour so I'm off to make a cup of tea

 

Didn't work, running it again to try chkdsk.

 

The Vista disc has frozen again at the Vista splash screen. It seems to work better after the laptop has been completely shut down for a few hours, so I'll run it again tomorrow and try command prompt chkdsk.

Incidentally, the laptop has always played up when it's been running for a long time, even in hibernation

 

Ok, have a good night.

If it boots to disk in the morning you don't have to restart in between chkdsk and attempting System Restore. Just type exit in the black window after chkdsk runs and then try System Restore option from the list.

Make sure you use the full command chkdsk C: /r
Since you want it done on C: drive and you want it to repair any errors it can.

 

Morning

chkdsk is running. It's coming back with loads of 'File secment record [###] is unreadable' messages. That's bad isn't it?

 

Chkdsk seems to have stopped at 12% complete, with 'an unspecified error has occured'

and then X:\Sources>

Do I type exit there?

Anyone recommend a cheap but good hard drive? :-D

 

That is not good. I'd go ahead and run chkdsk again to see if you can get it to complete since it can't hurt. See if you can get it to complete, no need to restart between attempts.

Then maybe a HD test is in order to see if the HD is mechanically bad or it is just corruption of the file system.

If the drive is mechanically bad then you need a new one and a Vista installation disc. I believe that I have read that Acer recovery discs will not work on a HD not bought from Acer. They must initialize the drive in some way that the drive sees and accepts; so that is a consideration.

 

Ok, I've started another startup repair (for something to do) is it ok to cancel that to start chkdsk, or let it run through?

 

You can cancel the startup repair that only takes a minute or two when the filesystem is good.

Try the chkdsk again and I'll take a quick look at Puppy to see if it has a harddisk evaluation tool.

 

Oh, I just got a box saying it can't be cancelled, I'll be back in an hour then.........

What if I stop it by closing the window?

 

The Vista disk doesn't want to run again. I think we're flogging a dead horse.

I'll get on with the HD test.

What if I did but a new HD and new copy of windows, where would I get the specific acer drivers for it?

 

Yes, if you got a new HD and a new copy of Windows you can always download any Acer drivers Windows doesn't automatically find from the Acer site.

***
Yes, the Vista disc being so problematic is a major problem. Chkdsk is the one utility that is hard to find on anything other than a Microsoft disc.

Go ahead and start Puppy and I'll see if it has a built in hard disk monitor that can tell us if the SMART status is tripped/bad. If that is the case then it is probably time to give up any recovery without a new drive.

Be a few minutes because I have to reload a default installation of Puppy to see what you have available on your CD.

 

Ok thanks,

my worry about the drivers is because anytime I've tried to use the Acer site I haven't been able to because they don't recognise my serial number, machine too old I guess, and second hand. May be better to get an Acer drive and Acer disc? I found this one http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aspire-5720Z-Drive-500GB-5400rpm/dp/B00512S9IW