Invalid Partition Table and data recovery

[frozentax]

Here's the scoop: Running Win2k SP4 with all updates, I turned on my computer this morning and it wouldn't boot. Went to the recovery console, ran fixboot and fixmbr on the drive/partition with ntldr and ntdetect.. I boot up again and get an "Invalid Partition Table" error!

I have two partitions on harddisk0, one for the WinNT install, the other for data. Well, the data partition is the one with the invalid partition table, and is now inaccessible.

I plugged in another hard drive so I could boot into another Win2k installation, and ran findntfs on the invalid partition. It finds all of my files, however, it can only recover some. Any suggestions as to what program/procedure to recover all data? I don't see how any of it could have been overwritten, unless the hard drive itself is bad?

Thanks!

 

[sparky853]

Try PC Inspector File Recovery. I have used it successfully in the past, and its free.

You can download it <A HREF="http://www.fsguard.com/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm" target="_new">here.</A>

Spec:
Intel P4 2.4B
MSI 645E Max-U Mobo
1GB DDR333
R9600XT 128MB
SB Live 5.1
WD 60GB
Maxtor 120GB
LG DVD+-R/RW
WIN2K PRO SP4

 

[Toejam31]

FYI ... there's a warning in regards to the fixmbr command on this <A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000/techinfo/reskit/samplechapters/fndc/fndc_rec_ztkn.asp" target="_new">site</A> that states:

Warning:

This command can damage your partition table if a virus is present or a hardware problem exists and causes partitions to become inaccessible. It is recommended that you run antivirus software before using this command.

This leaves you with at least two possibilities as to why the problem occurred.

Perhaps you can use <A HREF="http://www.win2000mag.com/Articles/Print.cfm?ArticleID=15522" target="_new">DiskProbe</A> to recover the data. You could also try running the Fixboot command again on the corrupted data partition, to replace the boot sector.

Information on this site might prove to be useful:

<A HREF="http://www.ntfs.com/partition-recovery-concepts.htm" target="_new">Partition Recovery Concepts</A>

Toey

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[sjonnie]

Use Active Parition Recovery. It will scan your disk for partitions and rewrite the partition table with the partitions it finds (you can choose which is the correct layout) then hey presto, your partition will reappear.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/myanandtech.html?member=114979" target="_new">My PCs</A>

 

[frozentax]

Hey guys, thanks for the help!

The reason why findntfs wouldn't list/recover all of my files was that my disk is 180GB - the other hard drive I plugged in to run the recovery tools didn't have an IDE driver that would support disks > 130GB. So I updated the driver, ran findntfs again, and everything is recoverable, since the full disk can now be read. Whew!