Calling computer people

[Shounak]

My mum's computer just melted down.. It won't read any of the USB devices and I'm getting the "Start Windows with Last good configuration or Safe Mode" business..

I hooked up a PS2 keyboard and was able to select the safe mode option, but the computer keeps resetting itself and there's nothing I can do..

This hard drive has a lot of important information on it, so I disconnected it from mum's computer and chucked it in the Slave IDE thing on mine and connected it all up..

XP sensed a Maxtor HD and automatically added it as an F:/ drive, but I can't bloody access it from mine..

It's saying "Drive is not formatted do you want to format now?"..

I said no and tried to use Command Prompt.. I'm got the message "Data error: Cyclical redundancy check"..

I'm wondering if there's anything else I can do to save this data? Or if there was anything else I should've done when connecting the HD up.. Bios setting or anything I missed doing?

This data is very important.. I'm not gonna lose it without a fight..

Any help would be greatly appreciated..

Cheers

[futronix]

hey shounak......

what was installed, modified before the HD started playing up??

any new drivers installed???

sounds like a corrupupted HD.... if the other comp is recognising the other HDD on a slave IDE but not able to access the data it may well be rooted??
(are both the HDD's running NTFS format?)

go to the manufacturers website of the HD and download their utility proggie which will let you run a check....

I had a similiar problem with a corrupted 2.5" HD which wasent able to be accessed... thought it was buggered but chucked it in my laptop n put in a windows boot cd... did a full format and it was sweet....

try putting a Windows XP boot CD and set the BIOS to run of the CD before the HDD.... and run a full format from the WIN XP CD.....

BTW.... I know your face from somwhere... not from Clayton by anychance???

[Shounak]

I live in Wheelers Hill..

I go to Monash Uni in Clayton.. I've around the Clayton area a bit.. But yeah..

But thanks for the help mate..

[sixshooter]

Ok Shounak... I think I may be able to assist you.

Hopefully you have, the HDD jumper pins set correctly for the slave configuration...

In Windows goto
Control_Panel > Administrative_Tools > Computer_Management

In the left hand pane double click STORAGE then click DISK_MANAGEMENT

In the right hand pane you should see your disks attached to the machine...
If not you need to set you BIOS correctly...

Stay tuned... I just got to disconnect a drive to see what needs doing next...

[stocky]

hey i live pretty close to you.

ive had heaps of hard drive problems in the past. download and install partition magic and see what you can do with the drive from there. otherwise you might need to get your windows xp cd, boot to a recovery console and try fix it that way, or run a repair windows install, or just install windows onto it again and try to recover your files.

there are many different possibilities for what you could do, but normally only one will work and its a bloody bitch trying to work out which one

also. when windows is loading, do you see a blue screen for a second before it resets? if so, try to find out what it says about the error

and when installing the drive into your computer as a slave, as sixshooter said, check the jumpers. set them to either slave, or cable select. then load the bios and make sure its finding the right information about the drive.

good luck

[gocommygo]

ok, sounds like a dead harddrive, maxtor hd's have a rep for randomly dying at the worst of times! id set ur HD up as a slave, chuck it in a mates comp and burn all the important stuff onto dvd's if it still works

[sixshooter]

Ok back again...

Where i left off you should be able to see all the disks...

Right click you mums drive....you should have an option like "Import Foreign Disks" if I remember rightly...just click that and you should be able to use the disk....I was unable to properly check as my second hard drive has aready been imported and the MBR FAT modified...so I wasn't able to go through the proceedure again.

[Shounak]

and when installing the drive into your computer as a slave, as sixshooter said, check the jumpers. set them to either slave, or cable select. then load the bios and make sure its finding the right information about the drive.

good luck

How do I install it as a slave..

There's two red IDE cables.. One says primary and the other says Slave.. Primary is connected to my existing HD (obviously) the Slave was empty.. I plugged that into my mums HD..

Is there anythinge else I should do?

Cheers mate..

**edit**.. Just changed the jumpers over.. No change..

[Shounak]

Ok back again...

Where i left off you should be able to see all the disks...

Right click you mums drive....you should have an option like "Import Foreign Disks" if I remember rightly...just click that and you should be able to use the disk....I was unable to properly check as my second hard drive has aready been imported and the MBR FAT modified...so I wasn't able to go through the proceedure again.

There's nothing there that says import foreign drives.. It can't read the thing anyway..

Thanks for doing all that though mate..

[stocky]

How do I install it as a slave..

There's two red IDE cables.. One says primary and the other says Slave.. Primary is connected to my existing HD (obviously) the Slave was empty.. I plugged that into my mums HD..

Is there anythinge else I should do?

Cheers mate..

next to where you plug in the IDE cable on the drive, there are 8 metal pins, and there should be a black thing over 2 of them. this is the jumper. the location of the jumper determines how the hard drive runs. whether it is master/slave/cable select. there should be a picture on the hard drive that explains that, or else in the HD manual. if not, let me know and ill try help further.

[VTSSDUDE]

Sounds like the File system on the hard drive has been corrupted, if the jumpers were incorrect, the PC wouldn't have picked up your hard drive at all.
So it's jumpered correctly by the sounds of it.
What Operating System was your Mum's Computer, because XP should be able to access them all, (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS 4.0 & 5.0)
So as said sounds like your File System is corrupted, and unfortunely that is a bugger. There is software called Get Data Back, you have to pay for the full version to get it to recover data from your drive, as the demo version only shows you what you need to recover the data.
Good luck with it.

[sixshooter]

Shounak...
If the slave disk isn't visable in the Disk_Manager you probablly havent got the jumpers or the BIOS set properly...if it is then right click on the coloured graphic representation of the disk in the righthand pane... The disk shold be recognised as a foreign disk and the right click shortcut should have import foreign disks on it...As you can see my right click menu doesn't have import foreign disks as it has already been identified...

[stocky]

Sounds like the File system on the hard drive has been corrupted, if the jumpers were incorrect, the PC wouldn't have picked up your hard drive at all.
So it's jumpered correctly by the sounds of it.
What Operating System was your Mum's Computer, because XP should be able to access them all, (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS 4.0 & 5.0)
So as said sounds like your File System is corrupted, and unfortunely that is a bugger. There is software called Get Data Back, you have to pay for the full version to get it to recover data from your drive, as the demo version only shows you what you need to recover the data.
Good luck with it.

yeah i REALLY hate those programs. its bad enough having the feeling that youve lost everything, then these programs give you a little hope, and then take that away until you can pay a huge price for it.

[sixshooter]

Post some photos of what your working with Shounak... a picture says a thousand words... close ups of the drive and computer your using would be good.

[Shounak]

next to where you plug in the IDE cable on the drive, there are 8 metal pins, and there should be a black thing over 2 of them. this is the jumper. the location of the jumper determines how the hard drive runs. whether it is master/slave/cable select. there should be a picture on the hard drive that explains that, or else in the HD manual. if not, let me know and ill try help further.

Cheers.. Just fixed up the jumpers.. They were on Primary before..

[Shounak]

Sounds like the File system on the hard drive has been corrupted, if the jumpers were incorrect, the PC wouldn't have picked up your hard drive at all.
So it's jumpered correctly by the sounds of it.
What Operating System was your Mum's Computer, because XP should be able to access them all, (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS 4.0 & 5.0)
So as said sounds like your File System is corrupted, and unfortunely that is a bugger. There is software called Get Data Back, you have to pay for the full version to get it to recover data from your drive, as the demo version only shows you what you need to recover the data.
Good luck with it.

Hmm, the jumpers were incorrect at first.. But it still detected the drive all the same.

Changing the jumpers has seemed to do Sweet **** all..

At this point, my mum would be more then happy to pay to get the data back.. Quite the bind..

I'll post some print screens and pics up..

[Shounak]

Here's the screen shot of the Comp Management screen..

[sixshooter]

OK so your mums drive is a 80 GB unit....it looks all Ok from that screen shot...

Can you browse the drive with explorer now ?

[stocky]

Here's the screen shot of the Comp Management screen..

try run a chkdsk on the disk. i lost all access to a partition the other day. did a full 5 stage chkdsk, took an hour or two to complete, but i got everything back.

i think you can just right click on it in explorer, go to properties, and press check for errors. tick both option boxes. it will take a while

[Shounak]

Nup.. Same old screen.. For some reason it's still saying that the secondary drive is the primary one in Windows..

But not in Bios.. Weird..

[stocky]

can you post a screenshot of what you see in my computer?

[Shounak]

I tried to right click the drive in My computer.. My whole computer froze up.. Nothing worked..

I physically reset it and it wouldn't start.. I did it again, this time it wouldn't even start in Safe mode..

So I just pulled out the HD completely and reset it.. Perfect start..

This is screwed up..

[sixshooter]

Yeah your mums puter has been hit by a virus I bet...

A computer can only have one hard drive partition marked active... this is where the MBR tells the computer where to load the operating system from.

[dephilile]

Windows has that remote help thing. Maybe you should give that a go. probably easier than trying to do it via the forum

[Shounak]

I think this is beyond me.. Might just write the data off...

Thanks heaps to all the people that have helped out.. It's much appreciated..