Guest Watty Posted October 7, 2008 Posted October 7, 2008 See my other recent posts on my difficulty in getting my system squared away after a drive failure. So far unstoppable copier hasn't quite done, it but I may know why. Possibly I missed a setting. However, I tried the old drive again. The shop had gotten it up once long enough to copy just about everything off of it, so I thought I'd give it a try. It came up but needed to do a chkdsk, which took 10-15 minutes of sorting out orphans and such. It now seems pretty much up and intact. I'm about to make an image copy and save off to an external drive. I may explore unstoppable again, but first to get the image saved. It's been up for 2 hours. My guess is the power supply hiccuped originally. When I brought it up here, I removed the second and third hard drives.
Guest Daave Posted October 7, 2008 Posted October 7, 2008 Re: 99.99...% Recovered from Hard Drive Failure? "Watty" <notvalid@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:A3PGk.2$%11.1@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com... > See my other recent posts on my difficulty in getting my system > squared away after a drive failure. Watty, please don't start new threads for the same issue. It makes it *very* difficult for those who are trying to help you. > So far unstoppable copier hasn't quite done, it but I may know why. > Possibly I missed a setting. I had never heard of this program before, but it seems interesting. At any rate, it does not have imaging capabilities. > However, I tried the old drive again. The shop had gotten it up once > long enough to copy just about everything off of it, so I thought I'd > give it a try. I don't believe you ever told us what was wrong with this drive. (Then again, with seven or so simultaneous threads, it's possible you did, but I never saw the description.) Is the drive *physically* bad? Or is it just that the Windows installation became corrupt? > It came up but needed to do a chkdsk, which took 10-15 minutes of > sorting out orphans and such. It now seems pretty much up and intact. > I'm about to make an image copy and save off to an external drive. I > may explore unstoppable again, but first to get the image saved. It's > been up for 2 hours. What program are you going to use to image the hard drive? There is a free trial version of Acronis True Image available for download. If you want something totally free, DriveImageXML is very good. Then again, if your Windows installation is/was riddled with malware, you should consider a clean installation of Windows; that's what I would do. Note that you would not be able to copy your original Program Files folder to the new hard drive; that won't work. Programs, unfortunately, need to be *reinstalled*. > My guess is the power supply hiccuped originally. When I brought it up > here, I removed the second and third hard drives. In the future, if your hard drive is physically healthy, but you need to reinstall Windows, consider a Repair installation. This will keep all your programs and data intact. See: http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
Guest Daave Posted October 7, 2008 Posted October 7, 2008 Re: 99.99...% Recovered from Hard Drive Failure? Other thoughts... Replies are inline. "Watty" <notvalid@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message news:A3PGk.2$%11.1@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com... > See my other recent posts on my difficulty in getting my system > squared away after a drive failure. So far unstoppable copier hasn't > quite done, it but I may know why. Possibly I missed a setting. > However, I tried the old drive again. The shop had gotten it up once > long enough to copy just about everything off of it, so I thought I'd > give it a try. > > It came up but needed to do a chkdsk, which took 10-15 minutes of > sorting out orphans and such. It now seems pretty much up and intact. If your hard drive is physically healthy (is it?) and if all you needed to do to fix your original problem was to run chkdsk (if so, I'm stumped as to why the shop you took your PC to was unable to do the same), then you may very well have fixed your problem! But it's important to let us know in detail what's been going on. > I'm about to make an image copy and save off to an external drive. I > may explore unstoppable again, but first to get the image saved. It's > been up for 2 hours. In my other post, I mentioned two imaging programs. However, the new hard drive you purchased has its own cloning program. So, just follow the instructions and you will be able to successfully clone your old hard drive to the new one. Once you have your system the way you want it, *then* image the hard drive. And it would be good to get into the habit of regularly imaging your hard drive. This way, if you have any serious problems with Windows in the future, you can easily and quickly restore the most recent image and you'll be back in business. If you don't create frequent images, make sure that at the very least you frequently back up your data.
Guest Watty Posted October 7, 2008 Posted October 7, 2008 Re: 99.99...% Recovered from Hard Drive Failure? Daave wrote: > "Watty" <notvalid@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message > news:A3PGk.2$%11.1@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com... >> See my other recent posts on my difficulty in getting my system >> squared away after a drive failure. > > Watty, please don't start new threads for the same issue. It makes it > *very* difficult for those who are trying to help you. > >> So far unstoppable copier hasn't quite done, it but I may know why. >> Possibly I missed a setting. > > I had never heard of this program before, but it seems interesting. At > any rate, it does not have imaging capabilities. > >> However, I tried the old drive again. The shop had gotten it up once >> long enough to copy just about everything off of it, so I thought I'd >> give it a try. > > I don't believe you ever told us what was wrong with this drive. (Then > again, with seven or so simultaneous threads, it's possible you did, but > I never saw the description.) Is the drive *physically* bad? Or is it > just that the Windows installation became corrupt? > >> It came up but needed to do a chkdsk, which took 10-15 minutes of >> sorting out orphans and such. It now seems pretty much up and intact. >> I'm about to make an image copy and save off to an external drive. I >> may explore unstoppable again, but first to get the image saved. It's >> been up for 2 hours. > > What program are you going to use to image the hard drive? There is a > free trial version of Acronis True Image available for download. If you > want something totally free, DriveImageXML is very good. > > Then again, if your Windows installation is/was riddled with malware, > you should consider a clean installation of Windows; that's what I would > do. Note that you would not be able to copy your original Program Files > folder to the new hard drive; that won't work. Programs, unfortunately, > need to be *reinstalled*. > >> My guess is the power supply hiccuped originally. When I brought it up >> here, I removed the second and third hard drives. > > In the future, if your hard drive is physically healthy, but you need to > reinstall Windows, consider a Repair installation. This will keep all > your programs and data intact. See: > > http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm > > Perhaps. I find it something of the other way around. People give incomplete answers, and I have to back out of a long thread to find what I'm looking for. My experience is after threads get 4-5 msgs deep, they are hard to follow. Additionally, people often dive into the middle and start offering suggestions that are of now help. Furthermore, as the posts become separate, new issues are available as topics that may really profit others. In any case, I think this topic is over, and thanks to all who participated.
Guest Watty Posted October 8, 2008 Posted October 8, 2008 Re: 99.99...% Recovered from Hard Drive Failure? No problem. I'll give it a try. See mixed comments below. Daave wrote: > Other thoughts... Replies are inline. > > "Watty" <notvalid@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message > news:A3PGk.2$%11.1@flpi144.ffdc.sbc.com... >> See my other recent posts on my difficulty in getting my system >> squared away after a drive failure. So far unstoppable copier hasn't >> quite done, it but I may know why. Possibly I missed a setting. >> However, I tried the old drive again. The shop had gotten it up once >> long enough to copy just about everything off of it, so I thought I'd >> give it a try. >> >> It came up but needed to do a chkdsk, which took 10-15 minutes of >> sorting out orphans and such. It now seems pretty much up and intact. > > If your hard drive is physically healthy (is it?) and if all you needed > to do to fix your original problem was to run chkdsk (if so, I'm stumped > as to why the shop you took your PC to was unable to do the same), then > you may very well have fixed your problem! But it's important to let us > know in detail what's been going on. Yes, it seems to be fine; however, it died a week ago with Disk Boot Failure Insert System Disk. (I had no idea what the sys disk was, but figured it was the install CD. That didn't help, so I started checking other ways.) I tried to start it repeatedly under different conditions. For example, turn all off and wait. Zippo. I then put it on another machine. Zippo. Posted msgs. All declared it dead. A friend had good luck with a local shop with an XP problem, so I called them. Yes, they might be able to help. They have several hardware tricks they can use. $75 for a shot at it, and if they got it up they'd dump everything to my external 500G drive, FreeAgent, Seagate, usb. Surprisingly it came up immediately for them, so rather than take a chance with it suddenly dying, they dumped the contents. I decided that was the end of the story. I now had all my data, but asked if could perhaps get the PC rolling with a new drive. He said, yes, try unstoppable copier, a freebie. Install XP onto the new drive, and useunstoppable to transfer the recovered files. So what do I have to lose? Yes, I could have continued with them, but I thought I'd give it a try. BTW, I happened into another shop afterwards, and just asked if they do such things, save data from a bad drive. Yes, $100. He also shot said if it didn't spin up, it would be $500 to get it off. The low figure surprised me, but he reiterated it. $500? No thanks. That never quite did it. My first attempt went awry. I had made a simple mistake, so I tried again. This time it looked OK except there were a few anomalies. Chief among them were the Start menu was titled the same as the new install. How could that be I asked myself? I talked to the tech guy at the shop, and he said I needed change some options in unstoppable. BTW, I had another XP machine that I could work out copies, etc., independent of the broken machine-drive. After thinking about this, and he'd mentioned that it might be a power supply problem, I thought why not just try the old drive again on my semi-bonkered machine. Further why power all drives, so I disconnected the others. Viola! It worked. Lots of chkdsk message, but it was now working. Still is right now. It might fail if I put the other two drives back, so right now I'm setting things up now to copy the image using a Seagate DiscWizard, which is a stripped down version of acronis. I plan to copy the c-drive image of the semi-bonkered machine over to the new 320G disk drive. It's 320G, and I can use the space. The old drive only used 58G. It doesn't look like I'm going to get to further plow into the use of unstoppable, so I really don't know if it'll do the job. The tech guy thought it would, but I really don't know if had done it before. Any other questions? > >> I'm about to make an image copy and save off to an external drive. I >> may explore unstoppable again, but first to get the image saved. It's >> been up for 2 hours. > > In my other post, I mentioned two imaging programs. However, the new > hard drive you purchased has its own cloning program. So, just follow > the instructions and you will be able to successfully clone your old > hard drive to the new one. Once you have your system the way you want > it, *then* image the hard drive. And it would be good to get into the > habit of regularly imaging your hard drive. This way, if you have any > serious problems with Windows in the future, you can easily and quickly > restore the most recent image and you'll be back in business. If you > don't create frequent images, make sure that at the very least you > frequently back up your data. > >
Guest Watty Posted October 8, 2008 Posted October 8, 2008 Re: 99.99...% Recovered from Hard Drive Failure? I've now recovered fully to where I was pre-wreck, and my bootable drive is now 320G instead of the old 80G. Done.
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