File Recovery after SP2. Is it possible.

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

Sounds like the drive has failed. Download a diagnostic utility from the
manufacturer's web site.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

"Warped" wrote:
|I don't know if this is the right group to ask this, but here goes.
|
| My hard drive crashed. Dead. Cannot even view it after I installed a
| second hard drive. I think boot.ini is corrupted. I tried a number a
| recovery programs including Easy Recovery Professional which saw the
| dead hard drive.
|
| There are two problems.
|
| Problem NO. 1: The hard drive has two partitions. I could recover some
| files on the first partition (C) but very little on the second
| partition (D). I am having a real problem getting into the second
| partition. Most recovery programs do not see the second partition and
| if they do, they cannot read the second partition.
|
| Problem No. 2: It seems that most of the files I recovered are files
| from more than a year or so ago. I am beginning to suspect that the
| problem lies with files created after I installed SP2. I cannot
| recover files created after SP2 was installed.
|
| Can anybody help me.
|
| Warped
|

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

I got a utility from the disk manufacturer. The utility says that
there are no bad sectors on the hard drive. This means, I guess, that
it is a software problem. Nothing was overwritten. How can old stuff
overwrite newer stuff?Ohhhhhh.

Warped

Harry Ohrn wrote:
> Files are retained on a drive until they are over written. So it is not
> unusual to find remnants of files from a very long time ago. In your case it
> sounds like your hard drive has bad sectors. Some of the drive is readable
> and parts aren't. If that is so there is virtually no way to recover files
> that might be on the damaged sectors.
>
> --
>
> Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
> www.webtree.ca/windowsxp
>
>
> "Warped" <warpdriver@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1125441275.998238.47250@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >I don't know if this is the right group to ask this, but here goes.
> >
> > My hard drive crashed. Dead. Cannot even view it after I installed a
> > second hard drive. I think boot.ini is corrupted. I tried a number a
> > recovery programs including Easy Recovery Professional which saw the
> > dead hard drive.
> >
> > There are two problems.
> >
> > Problem NO. 1: The hard drive has two partitions. I could recover some
> > files on the first partition (C) but very little on the second
> > partition (D). I am having a real problem getting into the second
> > partition. Most recovery programs do not see the second partition and
> > if they do, they cannot read the second partition.
> >
> > Problem No. 2: It seems that most of the files I recovered are files
> > from more than a year or so ago. I am beginning to suspect that the
> > problem lies with files created after I installed SP2. I cannot
> > recover files created after SP2 was installed.
> >
> > Can anybody help me.
> >
> > Warped
> >

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

When you take out the second hard drive can you use the HDD then. If you can
then it would be the jumoer settings on your HDD. One needs to be set for
master the other for slave.

"Warped" wrote:

> I got a utility from the disk manufacturer. The utility says that
> there are no bad sectors on the hard drive. This means, I guess, that
> it is a software problem. Nothing was overwritten. How can old stuff
> overwrite newer stuff?Ohhhhhh.
>
> Warped
>
> Harry Ohrn wrote:
> > Files are retained on a drive until they are over written. So it is not
> > unusual to find remnants of files from a very long time ago. In your case it
> > sounds like your hard drive has bad sectors. Some of the drive is readable
> > and parts aren't. If that is so there is virtually no way to recover files
> > that might be on the damaged sectors.
> >
> > --
> >
> > Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
> > www.webtree.ca/windowsxp
> >
> >
> > "Warped" <warpdriver@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:1125441275.998238.47250@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > >I don't know if this is the right group to ask this, but here goes.
> > >
> > > My hard drive crashed. Dead. Cannot even view it after I installed a
> > > second hard drive. I think boot.ini is corrupted. I tried a number a
> > > recovery programs including Easy Recovery Professional which saw the
> > > dead hard drive.
> > >
> > > There are two problems.
> > >
> > > Problem NO. 1: The hard drive has two partitions. I could recover some
> > > files on the first partition (C) but very little on the second
> > > partition (D). I am having a real problem getting into the second
> > > partition. Most recovery programs do not see the second partition and
> > > if they do, they cannot read the second partition.
> > >
> > > Problem No. 2: It seems that most of the files I recovered are files
> > > from more than a year or so ago. I am beginning to suspect that the
> > > problem lies with files created after I installed SP2. I cannot
> > > recover files created after SP2 was installed.
> > >
> > > Can anybody help me.
> > >
> > > Warped
> > >
>
>

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

Files are retained on a drive until they are over written. So it is not
unusual to find remnants of files from a very long time ago. In your case it
sounds like your hard drive has bad sectors. Some of the drive is readable
and parts aren't. If that is so there is virtually no way to recover files
that might be on the damaged sectors.

--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp


"Warped" <warpdriver@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1125441275.998238.47250@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I don't know if this is the right group to ask this, but here goes.
>
> My hard drive crashed. Dead. Cannot even view it after I installed a
> second hard drive. I think boot.ini is corrupted. I tried a number a
> recovery programs including Easy Recovery Professional which saw the
> dead hard drive.
>
> There are two problems.
>
> Problem NO. 1: The hard drive has two partitions. I could recover some
> files on the first partition (C) but very little on the second
> partition (D). I am having a real problem getting into the second
> partition. Most recovery programs do not see the second partition and
> if they do, they cannot read the second partition.
>
> Problem No. 2: It seems that most of the files I recovered are files
> from more than a year or so ago. I am beginning to suspect that the
> problem lies with files created after I installed SP2. I cannot
> recover files created after SP2 was installed.
>
> Can anybody help me.
>
> Warped
>

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

If you can't find your lost data with the tools you have then find another
tool. This one should work
http://www.winternals.com/Products/AdministratorsPak/ It contains and app
called Disk Commander. It is very good. I once accidentally started loading
a Ghost image to the wrong partition on which I had many GBs of important
data. I managed to stop the image load then ran Disk Command and was able to
recover all but only a small number of files. Be forewarned that this is not
a free product.

By the way I don't understand your comment "How can old stuff overwrite
newer stuff? Ohhhhhh." What's that all about????
--

Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
www.webtree.ca/windowsxp


"Warped" <warpdriver@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:1125453301.802460.15270@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>I got a utility from the disk manufacturer. The utility says that
> there are no bad sectors on the hard drive. This means, I guess, that
> it is a software problem. Nothing was overwritten. How can old stuff
> overwrite newer stuff?Ohhhhhh.
>
> Warped
>
> Harry Ohrn wrote:
>> Files are retained on a drive until they are over written. So it is not
>> unusual to find remnants of files from a very long time ago. In your case
>> it
>> sounds like your hard drive has bad sectors. Some of the drive is
>> readable
>> and parts aren't. If that is so there is virtually no way to recover
>> files
>> that might be on the damaged sectors.
>>
>> --
>>
>> Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
>> www.webtree.ca/windowsxp
>>
>>
>> "Warped" <warpdriver@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> news:1125441275.998238.47250@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> >I don't know if this is the right group to ask this, but here goes.
>> >
>> > My hard drive crashed. Dead. Cannot even view it after I installed a
>> > second hard drive. I think boot.ini is corrupted. I tried a number a
>> > recovery programs including Easy Recovery Professional which saw the
>> > dead hard drive.
>> >
>> > There are two problems.
>> >
>> > Problem NO. 1: The hard drive has two partitions. I could recover some
>> > files on the first partition (C) but very little on the second
>> > partition (D). I am having a real problem getting into the second
>> > partition. Most recovery programs do not see the second partition and
>> > if they do, they cannot read the second partition.
>> >
>> > Problem No. 2: It seems that most of the files I recovered are files
>> > from more than a year or so ago. I am beginning to suspect that the
>> > problem lies with files created after I installed SP2. I cannot
>> > recover files created after SP2 was installed.
>> >
>> > Can anybody help me.
>> >
>> > Warped
>> >
>

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

Checked it out by cannot get a download to see if it will see my files.

They want to mail a demo CD which means maybe I get it in a couple of
months.

Does not appear to be a feasible alternative.

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

Microsoft strikes again. After not being able to recover any file
after a hard drive crash subsequent to the installation of SP2, I
decided to try again to use a boot disk. I learned of the existence of
a Recovery Console to be used if your computer does not boot. I
finally got the corrrect version which is Windows
XP-KB310994-SP-Home-BootDisk-ENU.exe from microsoft.com.
Unfortunately, when one get to disk #5, the whole recovery program
terminates because a file: cdrom.sys is corrupt.

Research indicates that this is a very common problem and has been for
years.

Microsoft's solution to this bug in the Recovery Console designed to
permit a non-booting computer to boot is to tell the customer to boot
up the machine (which cannot boot - that's why you need the Recovery
Console), go into Windows and do a work around.

Duh. Duh. What genius came up with that one.

Warped

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

Hi Warped,

Have you already tried NTFS-reader? Here's a few freeware data
recovery tools:

http://free-backup.info/data-recovery-software.htm

Hope this helps!