Corrupt hard drive

[Louie]

Hi All. Hate asking for help so soon after joining but I'm in a real fix. I have a dell dimension dual boot desktop. My little boy pulled the plug out while I was using it yesterday and has fried my D drive. I am not bothered about being able to boot to it, its the lost data that concerns me.

 

When I try to boot to C drive as normal it takes ages and sometimes gets there in the end but it is pretty much unusable. Very slow. I can still see the fried drive in My Computer and can still see some files but cant access or copy them to the working drive. When I try, I get a message saying its corrupt. If I shut down and disconnect the D drive, everything bootts up fine and works perfectly.

 

So, what I really want to know is how can I give myself the best chance of receovering some of the files? Its really just photos. I cant try the corrupt drive in my old pc as it doesnt accept sata drives. I was thinking of purchasing a usb data link cable and trying to access the corrupt drive from my old pc.

 

Any ideas?

[Dalo Harkin]

Easiest and quickest way is to 'slave' the drive on another PC - does no one you know have SATA capability?

If its booting the PC when its not installed - then I am afraid it is likely that the HDD is dead - but try in another PC and see what happens

[Louie]

Easiest and quickest way is to 'slave' the drive on another PC - does no one you know have SATA capability?

If its booting the PC when its not installed - then I am afraid it is likely that the HDD is dead - but try in another PC and see what happens

 

Thanks for reply. Yeah, I thought of using a friends pc but wehn the drive is installed on my pc, my pc slows to a crawl and barely functions. I really dont mind losing the drive, I just want to save some photos of my little boy before trashing it. Thanks again.

[Dalo Harkin]

Ok - I cant stress strongly enough of backing photos and videos (any data you want to keep) onto a CD or a DVD -

for the sake of 10 minutes work - you will keep your photos and data safe, for many years.

If you have a lot of information/data then I know this is not always viable then a RAID (mirrored) solution is safe

[Louie]

Ok - I cant stress strongly enough of backing photos and videos (any data you want to keep) onto a CD or a DVD -

for the sake of 10 minutes work - you will keep your photos and data safe, for many years.

If you have a lot of information/data then I know this is not always viable then a RAID (mirrored) solution is safe

 

Thanks for advice. I have let my backups slip for a few months. Not backed up photos for 6 months. I will do it a lot more in future!

 

I am still trying to save the photos. Because its a sata drive, I cant slave it to my old pc which is why I was thinking of going the usb link route. I think its the fact that it has an operating system on it that is causing me so much trouble accessing it. The funny thing is, when its connected and I manage to actualy get into my C drive, I once managed to use 'search' and up popped the thumbnails of all the photos. But when I tried to copy them, I got an 'unreadable' error. I know the photos are there, I just need 5mins access to save them.

 

If I reinstalled xp as a repair on top of it, maybe I could get in. I have a feeling that if I could either repair windows or have the pc just treat it as a data drive I may be able to get in.

 

I had a very similiar problem around 8 years ago. I had given up on getting the data back. I cant remember all the details but I think I might have booted up from windows cd, formatted and re-installed windows which allowed me to boot into pc. I then used some recovery program (out of curiousity) and got back a good portion of mp3s and photos.

 

Im clutching at straws here. Will give it some thought. Thanks again

[Dalo Harkin]

Are you trying to boot from that HDD and then move the photos - or are you booting from the other drive (the one thats not broke) and then trying to copy the files ??

[Louie]

Are you trying to boot from that HDD and then move the photos - or are you booting from the other drive (the one thats not broke) and then trying to copy the files ??

 

I have a dual boot. Its the D drive that is fried. The C drive works perfect when D drive isnt connected. When I connect D drive back, I can still boot up to C drive but things move at a snails pace if Im lucky.

 

So yeah, I am booting from the working drive and want to copy what I can from the busted D drive. If I try to access the files from 'my computer' the pc usually crashes. But like I said, the thumbnails did pop up during a search. At a loss.

[Dalo Harkin]

The problem that you have is that the OS - is picking up another disk with an OS on it and from that you cannot extract information over - you need to turn the drive into a simple (I think) volume in disk management -

[Louie]

The problem that you have is that the OS - is picking up another disk with an OS on it and from that you cannot extract information over - you need to turn the drive into a simple (I think) volume in disk management -

 

Thanks for reply. I will try and get back into C drive later and try what you said. I am a little confused though. Before the drive got fried, I could easily swap files back and forth between both drives without changing anything in disk management. Not sure why thats a problem now. I will have a look. Thanks again.

[Dalo Harkin]

What you have described seems very odd - so you have 2 drives:-

C:/ Main drive still ok (OS installed)

D:/ Secondary drive not working fully (OS installed)

 

Have you tried booting from D:/ just to see if it does work?

Take the C:/ drive out and try it - If you are not too good on pc's then make sure that you set the BIOS back to EXACTLY the way it was before

[Louie]

What you have described seems very odd - so you have 2 drives:-

C:/ Main drive still ok (OS installed)

D:/ Secondary drive not working fully (OS installed)

 

Have you tried booting from D:/ just to see if it does work?

Take the C:/ drive out and try it - If you are not too good on pc's then make sure that you set the BIOS back to EXACTLY the way it was before

 

Already tried booting to corrupt drive many times. I get the 'unmountable' error. I know the disk is pretty much dead but Im just trying to save some files. Its not easy as my C drive will just not function well when corrupt D drive is connected.

[Tootech]

Hi Louie,

 

Which Operating System do you have on C: drive, and which one on D: drive?

 

Were you writing data to the D: drive when power was lost?

 

There are two possibilities - 1, the drive is electronically or phsyically damaged, or 2, the file system is corrupt.

 

A file system corruption is really common when power is lost to a drive whilst the drive is reading/writing. Normally, when connected, and booted from another drive, Windows, well XP and Vista, can't remember with the others, will recognize the drive has faults and attempt to repair them. You've not mentioned that - does it happen?

 

In this case data is almost always retrievable.

 

A damged drive really does require more caution. Any use of chkdsk ( the Windows tool for checking & repairing file systems) can cause more problems - as can booting from that particular drive.

 

If the data is precious to you, don't take any risks with a faulty drive.

 

 

I would attempt to boot from a live CD - not XP install CD though, and access the drive that way. The filesystem isn't affected and if the data is readable you can copy it over to your other drive, or some external USB device.

 

If you are up for that go here:

 

Download KNOPPIX Live DVD 5.3.1 for Linux - Knoppix is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software. - Softpedia

 

It's as easy as booting from Windows, uses a mouse etc.

 

Download & burn. Boot it with both drives attached and attempt to read your data. That way, there are no permissions, or Windows issues, just data.

[Louie]

Hi Louie,

 

Which Operating System do you have on C: drive, and which one on D: drive?

 

Were you writing data to the D: drive when power was lost?

 

There are two possibilities - 1, the drive is electronically or phsyically damaged, or 2, the file system is corrupt.

 

A file system corruption is really common when power is lost to a drive whilst the drive is reading/writing. Normally, when connected, and booted from another drive, Windows, well XP and Vista, can't remember with the others, will recognize the drive has faults and attempt to repair them. You've not mentioned that - does it happen?

 

In this case data is almost always retrievable.

 

A damged drive really does require more caution. Any use of chkdsk ( the Windows tool for checking & repairing file systems) can cause more problems - as can booting from that particular drive.

 

If the data is precious to you, don't take any risks with a faulty drive.

 

 

I would attempt to boot from a live CD - not XP install CD though, and access the drive that way. The filesystem isn't affected and if the data is readable you can copy it over to your other drive, or some external USB device.

 

If you are up for that go here:

 

Download KNOPPIX Live DVD 5.3.1 for Linux - Knoppix is a bootable CD with a collection of GNU/Linux software. - Softpedia

 

It's as easy as booting from Windows, uses a mouse etc.

 

Download & burn. Boot it with both drives attached and attempt to read your data. That way, there are no permissions, or Windows issues, just data.

 

Thanks for such an informative response. Much appreciated.

 

I have xp home on both drives. Yes, youre right, windows does try to repair drive but gets stalled due to unreadable sectors and goes no further. Im afraid Ive already used chkdsk. With regard to the live disk, I am not familiar with that at all but will give it a go if you think it will help. So, if that live disk helps me find the data, will it also give me a way to copy it? Trying to copy it by booting up to C drive is proving impossible. Thanks again.

[Tootech]

I think the drive is now faulty - let us know how you go on.

 

Just one more thing, some Dell's stack the drives next to each other at the bottom of the tower. If your's is like this, try to move the faulty drive away from the good drive - alot of heat is generated and a hot drive can be more difficult to work with.

[Louie]

I think the drive is now faulty - let us know how you go on.

 

Just one more thing, some Dell's stack the drives next to each other at the bottom of the tower. If your's is like this, try to move the faulty drive away from the good drive - alot of heat is generated and a hot drive can be more difficult to work with.

 

Drives are a few inches apart. I will let you know how I get on. Thanks for the help.

[Goku]

Hello and Welcome to Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help Louie. :)

 

Here is another solution for you to try Louie.

 

1. Insert your XP installation disk into an optical drive and boot up your computer.

2. When you see the welcome screen, hit the R key on your keyboard. This will enter you into the Recovery Console with a DOS prompt.

3. Now type chkdsk /p and hit Enter. This will launch a utility which will check for errors on your hard drive.

4. After the process is done, type fixboot and hit Enter to repair any damaged boot files which may have become corrupted. When asked to say yes or no, type the Y key on your keyboard.

5. Type exit and press enter to reboot your computer.

 

That should hopefully resolve your problem. If it does not, then post back and we will try to search for an alternate solution. :)

 

Note: If you have multiple instances of Windows installed then choose the corrupted installation when prompted and type the respective Administrator password.

 

-- Goku