Disaster recovery

[David]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Morning gurus,

Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all 40Gb,
lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had stopped
recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.

It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive, even
when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la vie.
He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly for
an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no readily
apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to see
what it said) and rebooted.

When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
(folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive and
we're back in business, I thought.

Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition Information"
and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set up on the
200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the backup
drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
point.

Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro). Windows
took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the chkdsk
screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He assured
me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if the
data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
this).

So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive may
have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I know
the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's photos.
(And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)

The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I have
three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery people
in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?

Thanks if you can help,

David

PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
recovery
specialist.)

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

That's the one flaw in many recovery procedures. Chkdsk can and will
fix errors, but in the process loose data. It should be every technician's
process to image a drive before attempting repairs. I've seen this happen
time and time again. Of course when you're in the cascading failure mode
you tend to get nervous and make even more mistakes. Also, using any
magnetic based media as a backup is risky (As you've found out).

What you describe doesn't sound promising. I would save the 20-Gig
backup disk. It might be the best candidate for professional recovery.
What you describe with cluster errors probably means the drive's contents
are lost in recovery modules.

It still might be fixable, but chances are low and costs may be very high.
I wouldn't do anything with the 20-Gig until you exhaust every course
of action for the 200 Gig.

"David" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
news:da9rnt$o83$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
> Morning gurus,
>
> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all 40Gb,
> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had
> stopped
> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>
> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive,
> even
> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la
> vie.
> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly for
> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no
> readily
> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to
> see
> what it said) and rebooted.
>
> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive
> and
> we're back in business, I thought.
>
> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition
> Information"
> and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set up on the
> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the
> backup
> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
> point.
>
> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro). Windows
> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the chkdsk
> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He
> assured
> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if
> the
> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
> this).
>
> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive
> may
> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I
> know
> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's photos.
> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>
> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I
> have
> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery people
> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>
> Thanks if you can help,
>
> David
>
> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
> recovery
> specialist.)
>
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

From his spyware and virus infected Windoze box, David had this to say:

> Morning gurus,
>
> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all 40Gb,
> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had
> stopped recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>
> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive,
> even
> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la
> vie. He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade
> the
> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly for
> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no
> readily apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't
> get to see what it said) and rebooted.
>
> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive
> and we're back in business, I thought.
>
> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition
> Information" and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set
> up on the
> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the
> backup
> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
> point.
>
> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro). Windows
> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the chkdsk
> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He
> assured me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive
> and if the data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't
> convinced by this).
>
> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive
> may have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and
> I know the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's
> photos. (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one
> family relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>
> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I
> have
> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery people
> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>
> Thanks if you can help,
>
> David
>
> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
> recovery
> specialist.)

Reading through what you've done, I suspect the problem is related to the
size of that hard drive. XP - unless it has been patched with SP1 or SP2 -
doesn't know how to handle hard drives larger than 137GB.

You probably attempted to install XP without the patches on this hard
drive's C drive and XP being the braindead OS it is famous for, just puked
and corrupted your C partition.

More than likely the other partitions are still OK. Hopefully that is the
case. If this is correct then you might still be able to get at that data
on the D drive.

More than likely the tech who's running chkdsk on Drive C won't get very far
in repairing that partition, but he'll probably not be destroying anything
on D drive.

I suggest that you get XP slipstreamed to at least SP1 and try installing XP
again on the C partition when you get the hard drive back. Then if you have
success, you should be able to go into drive management and get at your D
drive and the data there.

Another thing you can try to do if the above fails, is get a copy of the
Knoppix iso and burn Knoppix. This will create what is known as a Live
Linux CD. It'll allow you to boot up Knoppix Linux from the CD and then get
access to the partitions on your hard drive. (hopefully). You can find this
iso here ...

http://www.knoppix.org/

You'll want to download the iso, do a test on the iso to make sure it is all
there ...

http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/md5.php

Then burn a CD from the iso file you downloaded using something like Nero
that knows how to burn a CD from an image file (iso).

Best of luck! I'm sure that one way or another you'll get that data back.


--
Get Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
"A must-have for your Toy Operating System"

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

It may already be too late for the 200 gig drive if the tech doesn't/didn't
know what he was doing.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!


"R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:OuiK%23hCgFHA.2548@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> That's the one flaw in many recovery procedures. Chkdsk can and will
> fix errors, but in the process loose data. It should be every technician's
> process to image a drive before attempting repairs. I've seen this happen
> time and time again. Of course when you're in the cascading failure mode
> you tend to get nervous and make even more mistakes. Also, using any
> magnetic based media as a backup is risky (As you've found out).
>
> What you describe doesn't sound promising. I would save the 20-Gig
> backup disk. It might be the best candidate for professional recovery.
> What you describe with cluster errors probably means the drive's contents
> are lost in recovery modules.
>
> It still might be fixable, but chances are low and costs may be very high.
> I wouldn't do anything with the 20-Gig until you exhaust every course
> of action for the 200 Gig.
>
> "David" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
> news:da9rnt$o83$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
>> Morning gurus,
>>
>> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
>> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
>> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all
>> 40Gb,
>> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
>> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
>> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
>> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had
>> stopped
>> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>>
>> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive,
>> even
>> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la
>> vie.
>> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
>> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly
>> for
>> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no
>> readily
>> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to
>> see
>> what it said) and rebooted.
>>
>> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
>> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
>> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
>> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
>> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
>> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive
>> and
>> we're back in business, I thought.
>>
>> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
>> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition
>> Information"
>> and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set up on the
>> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the
>> backup
>> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
>> point.
>>
>> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
>> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro).
>> Windows
>> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the
>> chkdsk
>> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
>> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
>> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He
>> assured
>> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if
>> the
>> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
>> this).
>>
>> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive
>> may
>> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I
>> know
>> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's
>> photos.
>> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
>> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>>
>> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I
>> have
>> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
>> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery
>> people
>> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>>
>> Thanks if you can help,
>>
>> David
>>
>> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
>> recovery
>> specialist.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

This program might be worth a try if you have the necessary expertise to use
it;

http://www.active-undelete.com/


--
Rodger_B.......... from a land down under - Sydney, Australia.





David wrote:
> Morning gurus,
>
> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on
> Friday evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup.
> The 200Gb disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:,
> E; F: all 40Gb, lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive
> held My Documents containing (amongst other things) all the digital
> photos from his recent 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until
> recently My Documents were being backed up to the separate 20Gb
> drive, but recently the PC had stopped recognising this drive - hence
> bringing it to me to investigate.
>
> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the
> drive, even when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh
> well, c'est la vie. He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also
> asked me to upgrade the machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I
> did, was running smoothly for an hour or so while I was setting up
> the software etc. Then for no readily apparent reason, the machine
> flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to see what it said) and
> rebooted.
>
> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too
> many errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as
> a slave, found all the partitions/data alive and well, just
> corruption on C: drive (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew!
> Just rebuild the C drive and we're back in business, I thought.
>
> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition
> Information" and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no
> partitions set up on the 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to
> panic - don't forget the backup drive is also RIP. Thought it best
> to leave it to a professional at this point.
>
> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there
> plugged the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP
> Pro). Windows took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it
> went into the chkdsk screen. It then reported that it was correcting
> crosslinked clusters at cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about
> cluster 40,000 before we decided I would go home and he would call me
> when it was finished booting. He assured me that this process wasn't
> making physical changes to the drive and if the data had been intact
> before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by this).
>
> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb
> drive may have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not
> sure), and I know the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost
> all my uncle's photos. (And suffice to say for complicated family
> reasons, this is one family relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>
> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so
> I have three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations
> here - or should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data
> recovery people in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>
> Thanks if you can help,
>
> David
>
> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local
> disaster recovery
> specialist.)

 

[geoff]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

it was running after the upgrade to XP ?

boot from the xp CD and run repair

when you could see all the partitions when a installed as a
slave you should have backed up the data then. did you put
it back onto that machine after the win98 boot disks failed
?

good luck

Geoff

"David" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
news:da9rnt$o83$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
> Morning gurus,
>
> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his
PC on Friday
> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for
backup. The 200Gb
> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:,
E; F: all 40Gb,
> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My
Documents
> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos
from his recent
> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My
Documents were
> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently
the PC had stopped
> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to
investigate.
>
> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power
to the drive, even
> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh
well, c'est la vie.
> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me
to upgrade the
> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was
running smoothly for
> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc.
Then for no readily
> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I
didn't get to see
> what it said) and rebooted.
>
> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C:
partition. I
> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all
partitions were
> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was
reporting "too many
> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another
machine as a slave,
> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just
corruption on C: drive
> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just
rebuild the C drive and
> we're back in business, I thought.
>
> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with
the aim of
> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View
Partition Information"
> and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions
set up on the
> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't
forget the backup
> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a
professional at this
> point.
>
> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The
guy there plugged
> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines
(WinXP Pro). Windows
> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went
into the chkdsk
> screen. It then reported that it was correcting
crosslinked clusters at
> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000
before we decided I
> would go home and he would call me when it was finished
booting. He assured
> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the
drive and if the
> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I
wasn't convinced by
> this).
>
> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on
the 200Gb drive may
> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not
sure), and I know
> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my
uncle's photos.
> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this
is one family
> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>
> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for
three weeks so I have
> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any
recommendations here - or
> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data
recovery people
> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>
> Thanks if you can help,
>
> David
>
> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good
local disaster
> recovery
> specialist.)
>
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

If he allowed SCANDISK to 'repair' the drive when it was still faulty then
the data is almost certainly gone. He should know better. The proper
procedure is to install it as slave (so that there is minimal risk of
anything trying to write to it) and copy the data off (assuming it's
accessible). Then work out what the fault is and what's needed to fix it.

If SCANDISK has restricted itself to the primary partition the rest may be
recoverable, using partition repair utilities. But you need to first
properly diagnose exactly what the problem is - where the disk does or
doesn't work, what data is still intact, what the exact partition
information is, and whether it can be restored (it usually can, if the data
hasn't been altered).
--
Jeff Richards
MS MVP (Windows - Shell/User)
"David" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
news:da9rnt$o83$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
> Morning gurus,
>
> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all 40Gb,
> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had
> stopped
> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>
> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive,
> even
> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la
> vie.
> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly for
> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no
> readily
> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to
> see
> what it said) and rebooted.
>
> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive
> and
> we're back in business, I thought.
>
> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition
> Information"
> and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set up on the
> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the
> backup
> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
> point.
>
> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro). Windows
> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the chkdsk
> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He
> assured
> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if
> the
> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
> this).
>
> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive
> may
> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I
> know
> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's photos.
> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>
> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I
> have
> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery people
> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>
> Thanks if you can help,
>
> David
>
> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
> recovery
> specialist.)
>
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

"R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:OuiK%23hCgFHA.2548@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> That's the one flaw in many recovery procedures. Chkdsk can and will
> fix errors, but in the process loose data. It should be every technician's
> process to image a drive before attempting repairs.
Oh yeah, We've all got spare 200GB Hard Drives lying around the workshop.
We have a little disclaimer that says that we try everything in our power
not to lose data, and that we're not responsible for any data loss. It is
the responsibility of the consumer to protect their data. (or something to
that effect).

I'd stick the hard drive inside a USB2 case and try read the drive that way.
That way you can hotplug it without windows wanting to scan it for errors.
I would then use some data recovery software such as "file restorer 2000
professional". 8/10 times this works for me providing the drive doesn't
have too much physical damage. Otherwise you stick your head between your
legs and Kiss your Arse goodbye

I've seen this happen
> time and time again. Of course when you're in the cascading failure mode
> you tend to get nervous and make even more mistakes. Also, using any
> magnetic based media as a backup is risky (As you've found out).
>
> What you describe doesn't sound promising. I would save the 20-Gig
> backup disk. It might be the best candidate for professional recovery.
> What you describe with cluster errors probably means the drive's contents
> are lost in recovery modules.
>
> It still might be fixable, but chances are low and costs may be very high.
> I wouldn't do anything with the 20-Gig until you exhaust every course
> of action for the 200 Gig.
>
> "David" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
> news:da9rnt$o83$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
>> Morning gurus,
>>
>> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
>> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
>> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all
>> 40Gb,
>> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
>> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
>> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
>> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had
>> stopped
>> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>>
>> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive,
>> even
>> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la
>> vie.
>> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
>> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly
>> for
>> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no
>> readily
>> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to
>> see
>> what it said) and rebooted.
>>
>> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
>> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
>> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
>> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
>> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
>> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive
>> and
>> we're back in business, I thought.
>>
>> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
>> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition
>> Information"
>> and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set up on the
>> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the
>> backup
>> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
>> point.
>>
>> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
>> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro).
>> Windows
>> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the
>> chkdsk
>> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
>> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
>> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He
>> assured
>> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if
>> the
>> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
>> this).
>>
>> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive
>> may
>> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I
>> know
>> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's
>> photos.
>> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
>> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>>
>> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I
>> have
>> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
>> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery
>> people
>> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>>
>> Thanks if you can help,
>>
>> David
>>
>> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
>> recovery
>> specialist.)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

"Black Adder" <home@home.com> wrote in message
news:42ca6783$0$862$61c65585@uq-127creek-reader-03.brisbane.pipenetworks.com.au...
>
> "R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> news:OuiK%23hCgFHA.2548@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> That's the one flaw in many recovery procedures. Chkdsk can and will
>> fix errors, but in the process loose data. It should be every
>> technician's
>> process to image a drive before attempting repairs.

> Oh yeah, We've all got spare 200GB Hard Drives lying around the workshop.
> We have a little disclaimer that says that we try everything in our power
> not to lose data, and that we're not responsible for any data loss. It is
> the responsibility of the consumer to protect their data. (or something
> to that effect).

A competent technician, in it to make money will! For instance: I have 8-10
extra drives on the shelf constantly, along with 4-6 boxed M/B's, a few new
400W plus power supplies, 3-5 retail boxed AMD CPU's, and an assortment of
about 50 sticks of various types of RAM (some used - some new). Also 2 each
(unopened) of WinXP Home (Full Install) and WinXP Professional (Upgrade).

I almost forgot my 3 Seagate external USB 2.0 hard drives from 120 gig up
(used specifically to image customers hard drives - before I attempt repairs
that may cause data loss). And my stock is a bit down right now. I am
waiting for an order to arrive shortly.

There is a vast difference between a technician and a hobbyist.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

David wrote:
> Morning gurus,
>
> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all 40Gb,
> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had stopped
> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>
> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive, even
> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la vie.
> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly for
> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no readily
> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to see
> what it said) and rebooted.
>

[big cuts...]

>
> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro). Windows

That was a bad mistake. He should have used Ghost or DiskCopy etc.
to get a copy of the critical data before linking it up to Windoze!

> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the chkdsk
> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He assured
> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if the
> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
> this).
>
> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive may
> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I know
> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's photos.
> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>

4 figure sum, not 5. Try Forensic Data based in Darlinghurst 9368
1699 or http://www.forensicdata.com.au/

A client of mine's disk failed - head crashed even and Forensic got
all of the data back. Cost was about $1200 but that was for a small
disk. They have a surcharge for larger disks but it was only
$80/partition or disk that I recollect.

--
To reply by e-mail edit this address to the correct form: vbien at
attglobal dot net

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

In article <#fNjT4agFHA.2896@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl>,
richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com says...
> "Black Adder" <home@home.com> wrote in message
> news:42ca6783$0$862$61c65585@uq-127creek-reader-03.brisbane.pipenetworks.com.au...
> >
> > "R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote in message
> > news:OuiK%23hCgFHA.2548@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> >> That's the one flaw in many recovery procedures. Chkdsk can and will
> >> fix errors, but in the process loose data. It should be every
> >> technician's
> >> process to image a drive before attempting repairs.
>
> > Oh yeah, We've all got spare 200GB Hard Drives lying around the workshop.
> > We have a little disclaimer that says that we try everything in our power
> > not to lose data, and that we're not responsible for any data loss. It is
> > the responsibility of the consumer to protect their data. (or something
> > to that effect).
>
> A competent technician, in it to make money will! For instance: I have 8-10
> extra drives on the shelf constantly, along with 4-6 boxed M/B's, a few new
> 400W plus power supplies, 3-5 retail boxed AMD CPU's, and an assortment of
> about 50 sticks of various types of RAM (some used - some new). Also 2 each
> (unopened) of WinXP Home (Full Install) and WinXP Professional (Upgrade).
>
> I almost forgot my 3 Seagate external USB 2.0 hard drives from 120 gig up
> (used specifically to image customers hard drives - before I attempt repairs
> that may cause data loss). And my stock is a bit down right now. I am
> waiting for an order to arrive shortly.
>
> There is a vast difference between a technician and a hobbyist.

Actually, a technician would have a partner agreement with MS and own
the Action Pack and an MSDN Universal subscription.

I have 7 servers in test state at all times, a bunch of public IP's, a
couple firewall appliances, 10+ NAT routers, about 15 workstations up
and running at any time, but I don't carry any spare parts as I can get
them locally from a vendor at OEM cost in under 1 hour. Now, I do have a
ton of parts, but nothing I would sell as new to customers.



--
--
spam999free@rrohio.com
remove 999 in order to email me

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

In another 6 months to a year, I will have to do something. But I do like
having a smattering of new items I can sell, and install on the spot.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!


"Leythos" <void@nowhere.lan> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d34d8e366e7ee6298997d@news-server.columbus.rr.com...
> In article <#fNjT4agFHA.2896@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl>,
> richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com says...
>> "Black Adder" <home@home.com> wrote in message
>> news:42ca6783$0$862$61c65585@uq-127creek-reader-03.brisbane.pipenetworks.com.au...
>> >
>> > "R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote in message
>> > news:OuiK%23hCgFHA.2548@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> >> That's the one flaw in many recovery procedures. Chkdsk can and will
>> >> fix errors, but in the process loose data. It should be every
>> >> technician's
>> >> process to image a drive before attempting repairs.
>>
>> > Oh yeah, We've all got spare 200GB Hard Drives lying around the
>> > workshop.
>> > We have a little disclaimer that says that we try everything in our
>> > power
>> > not to lose data, and that we're not responsible for any data loss. It
>> > is
>> > the responsibility of the consumer to protect their data. (or
>> > something
>> > to that effect).
>>
>> A competent technician, in it to make money will! For instance: I have
>> 8-10
>> extra drives on the shelf constantly, along with 4-6 boxed M/B's, a few
>> new
>> 400W plus power supplies, 3-5 retail boxed AMD CPU's, and an assortment
>> of
>> about 50 sticks of various types of RAM (some used - some new). Also 2
>> each
>> (unopened) of WinXP Home (Full Install) and WinXP Professional (Upgrade).
>>
>> I almost forgot my 3 Seagate external USB 2.0 hard drives from 120 gig up
>> (used specifically to image customers hard drives - before I attempt
>> repairs
>> that may cause data loss). And my stock is a bit down right now. I am
>> waiting for an order to arrive shortly.
>>
>> There is a vast difference between a technician and a hobbyist.
>
> Actually, a technician would have a partner agreement with MS and own
> the Action Pack and an MSDN Universal subscription.
>
> I have 7 servers in test state at all times, a bunch of public IP's, a
> couple firewall appliances, 10+ NAT routers, about 15 workstations up
> and running at any time, but I don't carry any spare parts as I can get
> them locally from a vendor at OEM cost in under 1 hour. Now, I do have a
> ton of parts, but nothing I would sell as new to customers.
>
>
>
> --
> --
> spam999free@rrohio.com
> remove 999 in order to email me

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Black Adder <home@home.com> wrote in message
news:42ca6783$0$862$61c65585@uq-127creek-reader-03.brisbane.pipenetworks.com.au...
> R. McCarty <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@mindspring.com> wrote

>> That's the one flaw in many recovery procedures. Chkdsk can and will
>> fix errors, but in the process loose data. It should be every technician's
>> process to image a drive before attempting repairs.

> Oh yeah, We've all got spare 200GB Hard Drives lying around the workshop.

If he hasnt got what the image can be written to, he should have refused the
job.

> We have a little disclaimer that says that we try everything in our power not
> to lose data, and that we're not responsible for any data loss. It is the
> responsibility of the consumer to protect their data. (or something to that
> effect).

Taint gunna save your bacon in that particular situation where that
fool was stupid enough to claim that he could RECOVER the data.

> I'd stick the hard drive inside a USB2 case and try read the drive that way.
> That way you can hotplug it without windows wanting to scan it for errors.

That aint the only way to avoid it doing that.

> I would then use some data recovery software such as "file restorer 2000
> professional".

Only a fool does that without imaging it first
when its known to have irreplaceable data on it.

> 8/10 times this works for me providing the drive doesn't have too much
> physical damage. Otherwise you stick your head between your legs and Kiss
> your Arse goodbye

Plenty of more viable approaches than that.

> I've seen this happen
>> time and time again. Of course when you're in the cascading failure mode
>> you tend to get nervous and make even more mistakes. Also, using any
>> magnetic based media as a backup is risky (As you've found out).
>>
>> What you describe doesn't sound promising. I would save the 20-Gig
>> backup disk. It might be the best candidate for professional recovery.
>> What you describe with cluster errors probably means the drive's contents
>> are lost in recovery modules.
>>
>> It still might be fixable, but chances are low and costs may be very high.
>> I wouldn't do anything with the 20-Gig until you exhaust every course
>> of action for the 200 Gig.
>>
>> "David" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
>> news:da9rnt$o83$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
>>> Morning gurus,
>>>
>>> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
>>> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
>>> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all 40Gb,
>>> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
>>> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
>>> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
>>> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had stopped
>>> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>>>
>>> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive, even
>>> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la vie.
>>> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
>>> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly for
>>> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no readily
>>> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to see
>>> what it said) and rebooted.
>>>
>>> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
>>> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
>>> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
>>> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
>>> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
>>> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive and
>>> we're back in business, I thought.
>>>
>>> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
>>> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition Information"
>>> and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set up on the
>>> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the backup
>>> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
>>> point.
>>>
>>> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
>>> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro). Windows
>>> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the chkdsk
>>> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
>>> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
>>> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He assured
>>> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if the
>>> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
>>> this).
>>>
>>> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive may
>>> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I know
>>> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's photos.
>>> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
>>> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>>>
>>> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I have
>>> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
>>> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery people
>>> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>>>
>>> Thanks if you can help,
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
>>> recovery
>>> specialist.)
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

 

[Brian]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

One of the software programs that may help you is Acronis RecoveryExpert. It
claims that it can completely recover deleted partitions. If your computer
becomes unbootable from a system crash or virus attack, Acronis
RecoveryExpert will help you recover all your critical system areas and
undelete partitions - making your PC bootable again. Then there is Ontrack
EasyRecovery Professional. I have personally used it. In my opinion it is
one of the best for mass recovery of deleted files and directories.

Brian


"David" <no@spam.com> wrote in message
news:da9rnt$o83$1@mws-stat-syd.cdn.telstra.com.au...
> Morning gurus,
>
> Have had a sleepless weekend. My uncle had me look at his PC on Friday
> evening: this had a 200Gb HDD, plus a 20Gb drive for backup. The 200Gb
> disk was partitioned into five drives - a 5Gb C:; then D:, E; F: all 40Gb,
> lastly G: (approx) 85Gb (all FAT32). The D: drive held My Documents
> containing (amongst other things) all the digital photos from his recent
> 12mth trek around Aust in a camper van. Until recently My Documents were
> being backed up to the separate 20Gb drive, but recently the PC had
> stopped
> recognising this drive - hence bringing it to me to investigate.
>
> It turned out the 20Gb backup drive had failed - no power to the drive,
> even
> when I took it out and tried it in another machine. Oh well, c'est la
> vie.
> He was running Win98SE on the machine and he also asked me to upgrade the
> machine to Win XP while I was at it. This I did, was running smoothly for
> an hour or so while I was setting up the software etc. Then for no
> readily
> apparent reason, the machine flashed up a BSOD (so quick I didn't get to
> see
> what it said) and rebooted.
>
> When the machine restarted, it couldn't boot from the C: partition. I
> booted using Partition Magic's Rescue floppies and all partitions were
> present on the 200Gb drive, though the C: drive was reporting "too many
> errors". Took the 200Gb drive out, put it in another machine as a slave,
> found all the partitions/data alive and well, just corruption on C: drive
> (folder names were just gobbledegook). Phew! Just rebuild the C drive
> and
> we're back in business, I thought.
>
> Then I booted from a Win98SE setup disk and ran FDISK with the aim of
> deleting and recreating the C partition - chose "View Partition
> Information"
> and that was it - Fdisk reported there were no partitions set up on the
> 200Gb drive. About this stage I started to panic - don't forget the
> backup
> drive is also RIP. Thought it best to leave it to a professional at this
> point.
>
> Next morning I took it to the local computer shop. The guy there plugged
> the 200Gb drive in as a slave on one of his machines (WinXP Pro). Windows
> took ages to boot up, and when it finally started, it went into the chkdsk
> screen. It then reported that it was correcting crosslinked clusters at
> cluster 1, 2, 3... It was up to about cluster 40,000 before we decided I
> would go home and he would call me when it was finished booting. He
> assured
> me that this process wasn't making physical changes to the drive and if
> the
> data had been intact before, it would be after (but I wasn't convinced by
> this).
>
> So - where I'm up to now is that I fear all the data on the 200Gb drive
> may
> have been overwritten at the computer shop (though I'm not sure), and I
> know
> the 20Gb backup drive is dead - so I fear I've lost all my uncle's photos.
> (And suffice to say for complicated family reasons, this is one family
> relationship I can't afford to stuff up!)
>
> The small saving grace is that he has gone to Qld for three weeks so I
> have
> three weeks to come up with a solution. Any recommendations here - or
> should I start saving to pay the five-figure bill the data recovery people
> in Syd or Melb are going to hit me with?
>
> Thanks if you can help,
>
> David
>
> PS (I'm in Canberra, Aust, if anyone can recommend a good local disaster
> recovery
> specialist.)
>
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

On Wed, 6 Jul 2005 11:01:46 +1000, "Brian" <bgill36@yahoo.com> wrote:

>Then there is Ontrack
>EasyRecovery Professional. I have personally used it. In my opinion it is
>one of the best for mass recovery of deleted files and directories.
>
>Brian

I'm not a big fan of OnTrack, but their ERP program is effective, if
not intuitive. I've used a few different recovery programs with
clients' machines, and ontrack has done as well as any.

The key, of course, is not letting ANYTHING touch that partition
before the recovery starts. This includes chkdsk or any other program
that will write data.

Have a problem with a drive with crucial data on it? Power it down
right away and think a while about how to solve it. Avoiding that
initial desperate impulse may save your data.

If you turn ERP or another data recovery program loose, keep in mind
that it needs a separate partition to write to. It is not going to
write your data back to the damaged partition.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Please note that the recovery partition/drive must be equal to, or exceed,
the size necessary to store the recovered data.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!


"_RR" <_RR@nomail.org> wrote in message
news:ku8nc1dtn2ftk05s0518v3nbssaknbtgpd@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 6 Jul 2005 11:01:46 +1000, "Brian" <bgill36@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Then there is Ontrack
>>EasyRecovery Professional. I have personally used it. In my opinion it is
>>one of the best for mass recovery of deleted files and directories.
>>
>>Brian
>
> I'm not a big fan of OnTrack, but their ERP program is effective, if
> not intuitive. I've used a few different recovery programs with
> clients' machines, and ontrack has done as well as any.
>
> The key, of course, is not letting ANYTHING touch that partition
> before the recovery starts. This includes chkdsk or any other program
> that will write data.
>
> Have a problem with a drive with crucial data on it? Power it down
> right away and think a while about how to solve it. Avoiding that
> initial desperate impulse may save your data.
>
> If you turn ERP or another data recovery program loose, keep in mind
> that it needs a separate partition to write to. It is not going to
> write your data back to the damaged partition.
>
>

 

[HarrY]

Archived from groups: aus.computers,microsoft.public.win98.fat32,microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

"_RR" <_RR@nomail.org> wrote in message
news:ku8nc1dtn2ftk05s0518v3nbssaknbtgpd@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 6 Jul 2005 11:01:46 +1000, "Brian" <bgill36@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>>Then there is Ontrack
>>EasyRecovery Professional. I have personally used it. In my opinion it is
>>one of the best for mass recovery of deleted files and directories.
>>
>>Brian
>
> I'm not a big fan of OnTrack, but their ERP program is effective, if
> not intuitive. I've used a few different recovery programs with
> clients' machines, and ontrack has done as well as any.
>
> The key, of course, is not letting ANYTHING touch that partition
> before the recovery starts. This includes chkdsk or any other program
> that will write data.
>
> Have a problem with a drive with crucial data on it? Power it down
> right away and think a while about how to solve it. Avoiding that
> initial desperate impulse may save your data.
>
> If you turn ERP or another data recovery program loose, keep in mind
> that it needs a separate partition to write to. It is not going to
> write your data back to the damaged partition.
>
>
A simple solution to that is to format the partition first. Then use
Runtime's GetDataBack for NTFS or Fat32 to retrieve the contents of the
drive. I have done this many of times with great success. As long as the
hard drive is seen in the bios this software will retrieve the data stored
on the disk.