Drive can't be read, files there

Hi Reboot: I used both the f and r commands, no go with either.

Thanks

 

Chkdsk in NT is not to bad, but not up to the old scandisk standard. And in fat 32 it is very limited. And it you run the GUI from the partitions properties, you will find it real flackey.

Used a diskeditor and make crosslinks and you will find out the above is true.

 

Reboot:

Can I change from NTFS back to FAT 32 w/o wiping drives?

If I can and do, do you think I will still be able to recover files from that inacessable NTFS drive that I probably won't be able to change?

Or would you wait till all files recoverable were recovered then go FAT 32?

Jeez, I think I may be losing my sense of humor.

 

Reading back through this post, I see where Train says PM will switch drives from NTFS to FAT 32 without loss of data, so, sorry about that last question.

I'm going to fire up Partition Magic and see what happens.

 

I think we're beating a dead horse.
Until that drive can get assigned a drive letter, your data recovery prog will probably be the only way to get anything off it.
If it had a drive letter in DOS or Windows, then PM would convert it to FAT32 (if needed), and everything would be accessible.

 

Just found this: http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/3000-2094-6730657.html
Recovers NTFS data.
Not sure how the demo works, but you might be able to find it elsewhere (wink wink).

 

Hey Reboot: I agree that we're beating on a dead horse. At least as far as recovering Windows XP OS and making the hooped drive bootable. My fault for not having OS backup. (which I still don't have, see below)

As far as recovering data, the "Active Undelete" program ($29.00 for "standard version ") is doing a good job.

http://www.active-undelete.com

It can "see" and recover almost everything on the drive. The only knock on it is that it will recover some directories complete, but others I have to open and recover one file at a time. With thousands of files on the drive, it can get tedious just sorting through the files and choosing which ones to recover. I'm not complaining though, this is so much better than no recovery. In time, I will have retrieved all personal data, pictures, etc.

As of now, based on what I've learned from this experience, I have two concerns.

One: I want to get all drives back to FAT32. This is apparently no big deal with Partition Magic. but until all data is recovered, I'm reluctant to convert existing active drives to FAT32 that will be unable to read NFTS files residing on hooped drive. I'm just not sure how the conversion will affect the Active-Undelete program.

Two: Set up a reliable backup program/system/proceedure. As of now, I'm still vunerable to the type of crash and data loss I'm trying to recover from. I need to set up someway to recover OS as well as data. I would be using Drive Image or Ghost, but as stated earlier in this post, neither one will work on this machine.
I've been thinking to just copy and paste OS to another partition, but how to restore if system won't boot?

Another question just popped into my head. I have been writing files to CDRW disks (some backups) using InCD UDF. Will system set up with FAT32 read/write CDs that I wrote using system set up with NTFS???

Just a note: For some reason, InCD is now fomatting CDRW disks that were orignally fomatted and written to by B's Clip UDF packet writing software. InCD refused to do this before. This was a subject of a different post. However, it takes it over 40 minutes to format each disk. I guess this is better than just tossing them, but maybe not. I used to have a HP program that would partially format a disk in a couple of minutes and then write to it while formatting the rest. That was great. But I don't have that drive anymore.

Again, many, many thanks to all who have responded to this post, without your help and concern, I would have really been lost.

 

I'm glad that you are getting stuff back at least.
I don't see how PM could mess anything up, converting to FAT32, but the "better safe than sorry" idea is valid. Get it all sorted, then convert.

Ghost will work. Run the program, make the bootable diskette, and use it. It works in DOS, so there's no reason it won't work on any (PC) computer that has a floppy drive.
I routinely ghost my boot to another partition intact (FAT32). It's simple to restore if everything goes south, using the same ghost diskette. (It's almost a no brainer). Worst case scenario, you have to do a repair install after restoration.
CDR and CDRW can be read no matter what format the hard drive is. They have a format of their own, that is OS independant. eg. You can read a CDR made on a MAC, on a PC.

Curiously, can you not use wildcards in the active undelete program?

 

I haven't tried wild cards, the way the program works, you highlight a file in an explorer like list, click recover arrow, specify directory to send to, click recover button, done. If you highlight a directory, say with 25 files, recover to a drive letter, sometimes all files recoverd, sometimes 1 or 2, sometimes more. Seems to stop when it hits a file only a program reads.

I'm going to try Ghost again, I'm not sure what the message was, but If I rember, It simply said sorry, NTFS.

I'll try it now will post again in a few minutes.

 

It says "Will only work with FAT 16 and FAT 32 Formatted Partitions" When I try to run it anyhow, I get a DOS window for 1/2 second then it closes. This is Norton Ghost 2002.

Drive Image says "cannot image drives formatted NTSF 5" or something very similar.

 

Another note: MS tech support says reason repair install can't find XP installation is drive was originally formatted by MAX BLAST.
I think I'll talk to Maxtor about this.

 

Oh no! Another ***** in the works...If Maxblast was used, you'll need Maxtor's software to recover it.

Ghost will work, the version you have won't do NTFS though, so you'll need to convert to FAT32 first, then make the boot diskette.

Same with Drive Image.

 

DI 2002 will work just fime with NTFS.

 

My hats off to all of you guys - great thread here. Only piping up because I saw the MaxBlast comment - confirms my intense dislike for any drive overlay B_S! Have been following all of your comments because I've got a similar dilemma facing me with somebody's hosed or "hooped" RAID 0 drives. I dropped back five and punted - told them to send the drives to a data recovery site. Price quote came back as $1500 so now they want me to give it a go when the drives come back. Already put in a new single drive for the guy with a clean XP Pro install along with all of his other software - he just needs to recover all his data. Not sure if I even want to tackle this. Regardless, thanks for all the insight from your comments on this thread.

 

Rockster2U: Hey, I've been able to recover 90% of data including video (avi, wmd) and all jpeg, word, email, wab, favorites, etc. Using the "Active Undelete" program.

Step 1, New clean install of XP home on different drive than hooped drive.

2. hooped (I've learned a new word) drive as slave to new XP.

3. Install and run Active Undelete. Link on this post earlier. It cost 29 bucks, but to me at least, worth it.

File recovery can be very tedious, it has taken days, see my earlier comments, but the interface is relatively intuitive, If I can do it, anybody can. Maybe you could just show him how to use it and let him spend the time.

But I digress: More problems here! I'm stumped again.

I run PM8, on start it gives error message rough quote: Drive 2 different drive geometry (240h 63s) don't use this program or you will really be *****, it will hose all your drives.

Drive 2 is my D drive, slaved to C on PCI IDE controller card. It is working just fine. When click OK on error message, PM window says: Drive 2 "BAD" Drive 3 (hooped drive) Type 44.

As you can guess, I have no idea what they are talking about, but anyhow, go to MS Disk Management figure drive 2(D) needs format, clear it, reformat to Fat 32. All appears to go well.

Fire up PM8, you guessed it, same error message, same "BAD" report on Drive "2" Anybody got a gun I can borrow?

 

Train: I have Drive Image 4.0 that is telling me it won't image NTFS 5 ????????

I originally thought that meant that I had too many drives, but apparently must mean something else?

 

They are ( were ) telling you that the drive was not to be tursted. PM is correct. A bad drive in the system can ( and has ) hosed the WHOLE system. I trusted a bad drive ONCE ( and only once )

If you have cleaned it up and reformated in Fat32 and are not getting any more errors you * MAY BE * OK.

A word or two of caution from experience.

If you sholud start getting any more errors on that drive ( from anything ) I would toss that drive in the nearest trash bin.

There may be un repairable PHYSICALL damage to that drive. I would not trust ot at all.

And from what I have read ( somewhere ) going to NTFS and back to Fat32 is not a better idea.

And a question. If and when you went back to Fat 32 did you do and FDISK /MBR. to clear/reset the Master Boot Record first.

BillyBob

 

'Morning BillyBob

Quote:
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And a question. If and when you went back to Fat 32 did you do and FDISK /MBR. to clear/reset the Master Boot Record first.
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What I did was use XP Home's MS Disk Management. After moving all files off of the drive, I right clicked the drive in the management console. It gave the option to reformat and when option to reformat selected, gave option for file format of NTFS or FAT 32, selected FAT 32, format proceeded from there. Have done nothing else to the drive or computer, except move files back to where they were. XP Disk Management reports the drive as Healthy and Active.

All else seems well with the drive, it get no error messages from anywhere except from PM8's report of "BAD" Got the "BAD" report from PM8 both before and after the refomat.

Quote:
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And from what I have read ( somewhere ) going to NTFS and back to Fat32 is not a better idea.
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Did it (FAT 32) 'cause all posts (until yours) seemed to indicate it was a good idea to run FAT 32. and convert drives.

Quote:
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They are ( were ) telling you that the drive was not to be tursted. PM is correct.
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That's just great news, this is the drive that now contains all of the recoverd files from the crashed XP drive.

 

OUCH on the drive.
DI2002 maybe the first that is able to work with newer versions of NTFS. Fact is, I do believe it is. Anyway, it works just fine with XP NTFS and Fat32 as I image to cds with it.
Always prefer a 20 minute install to a 3 - 4 hour one.

 

Jeez Train, I wouldn't even mind a 3-4 hour install. It's them 3-4 weeks of reinstalling everything and recovering files that bothers me. That's why I was trying to use DI 4.0 to image everything, and as luck would have it the image would have to have been on the D drive. But now, my D drive is bad? What a downer. I mean, can fate be that cruel? Have the Gods of technology abandoned me???

Does everybody agree that the drive that PM8 reports as bad should be tossed?? I hesitate to dump a 40 gig drive that appears to be working great, Windows reports as healthy, reads and writes files w/o a hiccup, even is handling some program files w/o a hitch.

When I go to the doctor & he tells me I need to pay him $$$$$$$$ or die, I like a second (&/or 3rd-4th-5th) opinion. Anybody who has an opinion will be welcomed, please chime in.

It'll take me about 10 minutes to transfer the files and dump the drive, but my hesitation knows no bounds. (This drive is still under warranty )

Next Subject:

I'm ready to format the old C drive, having recovered everything I could recover, almost everything. That "Active Undelete" program gets my unqualified endorsement.

But, back to this Max Blast thing. If MS tech support is correct, I will never be able to do a Windows XP repair on the current C drive, as MS tech support tells me that XP repair can't find existing install because Max Blast was used to do the original format. If that's true, that's why I couldn't repair the old C drive, it is also a Maxtor, formatted with Max Blast. I have reservations about taking MS tech support as gospel. Looking for second opinions on this too.

Was using Max Blast the cause of all the grief that has been the subject of this post? Where was the warning? Caveat emptor?

Inevitably, If I ever get back to an un-hooped system, use it for a while, a repair will have to be done. I'd really like to be able to fix it when it breaks.

Do I wipe the current C drive, reformat using Windows and reinstall XP? ( for the umpteenth time) Will that enable repair to recognize that there is an XP install on the machine? Will that overcome Max Blast's diabling of the repair feature?

I'd like to do something that actually acomplishes something. Working furiously and getting nowhere can get demoralizing.