Help - I screwed up my secondary hard drive!!!

[Newbiephotographer]

I am desperate. I was helping a friend with her computer. She had a drive
that would not boot and she could not figure out how to get into BIOS.
Anyway, I removed my secondary hard drive, installed hers on my machine and
fixed her problem. I shut down Windows XP Pro and reinstalled my hard drive
BUT WINXP PRO WAS STILL SHUTTING DOWN when I reconnected my hard drive and
it appears that it has written some information from her hard drive onto
mine. I restarted my computer and my secondary hard drive appears to be
hers. My drive is a 160 Gb NTFS drive and Windows is still showing the
information for her 40 Gb Fat 32 drive. I purchased a recovery program and
saved 99% of the files from the drive, except for the most important file!
I keep all of my family photo's in a Jetico BestCrypt file so that no one
would have access if my computer was ever breached or stolen. I don't want
to lose that file. I believe that either the partition information or the
MBR (I think that it is a MBR not a FAT table for NTFS) is either corrupt or
damaged. Any help would be appreciated.

[T.S.]

Reconnecting and disconnecting hard drives or any electronic device inside
the computer system while the power is still running, even before shut-down
is complete is insane! You have for sure re-written the MBR on that drive. It
is also highly possible that you have lost and or courrpeted data on that
drive that will not be recoverable. Try a "checkdisk" run on your drive that
has had the MBR re-written. Do this by going into - "start/my computer/the
find the drive that needs to be checked. Right click on that drive's icon and
then select properties, then select tools the check both boxes under error
checking the drive. Then reboot and let checkdisk run its process. This will
take a while. Grab a soda and a snack and hope that you'll get most of your
data recovered when checkdisk completes.

"Newbiephotographer" wrote:

> I am desperate. I was helping a friend with her computer. She had a drive
> that would not boot and she could not figure out how to get into BIOS.
> Anyway, I removed my secondary hard drive, installed hers on my machine and
> fixed her problem. I shut down Windows XP Pro and reinstalled my hard drive
> BUT WINXP PRO WAS STILL SHUTTING DOWN when I reconnected my hard drive and
> it appears that it has written some information from her hard drive onto
> mine. I restarted my computer and my secondary hard drive appears to be
> hers. My drive is a 160 Gb NTFS drive and Windows is still showing the
> information for her 40 Gb Fat 32 drive. I purchased a recovery program and
> saved 99% of the files from the drive, except for the most important file!
> I keep all of my family photo's in a Jetico BestCrypt file so that no one
> would have access if my computer was ever breached or stolen. I don't want
> to lose that file. I believe that either the partition information or the
> MBR (I think that it is a MBR not a FAT table for NTFS) is either corrupt or
> damaged. Any help would be appreciated.
>
>
>

[Newbiephotographer]

Anyone with some Recovery Console experience? There is a FIXMBR command in
Recovery Console but I am not sure how to use it. Will it destroy
everything if it does not work? Any help appreciated.
"T.S." > wrote in message
...
> Reconnecting and disconnecting hard drives or any electronic device inside
> the computer system while the power is still running, even before
> shut-down
> is complete is insane! You have for sure re-written the MBR on that drive.
> It
> is also highly possible that you have lost and or courrpeted data on that
> drive that will not be recoverable. Try a "checkdisk" run on your drive
> that
> has had the MBR re-written. Do this by going into - "start/my computer/the
> find the drive that needs to be checked. Right click on that drive's icon
> and
> then select properties, then select tools the check both boxes under error
> checking the drive. Then reboot and let checkdisk run its process. This
> will
> take a while. Grab a soda and a snack and hope that you'll get most of
> your
> data recovered when checkdisk completes.
>
> "Newbiephotographer" wrote:
>
>> I am desperate. I was helping a friend with her computer. She had a
>> drive
>> that would not boot and she could not figure out how to get into BIOS.
>> Anyway, I removed my secondary hard drive, installed hers on my machine
>> and
>> fixed her problem. I shut down Windows XP Pro and reinstalled my hard
>> drive
>> BUT WINXP PRO WAS STILL SHUTTING DOWN when I reconnected my hard drive
>> and
>> it appears that it has written some information from her hard drive onto
>> mine. I restarted my computer and my secondary hard drive appears to be
>> hers. My drive is a 160 Gb NTFS drive and Windows is still showing the
>> information for her 40 Gb Fat 32 drive. I purchased a recovery program
>> and
>> saved 99% of the files from the drive, except for the most important
>> file!
>> I keep all of my family photo's in a Jetico BestCrypt file so that no one
>> would have access if my computer was ever breached or stolen. I don't
>> want
>> to lose that file. I believe that either the partition information or
>> the
>> MBR (I think that it is a MBR not a FAT table for NTFS) is either corrupt
>> or
>> damaged. Any help would be appreciated.
>>
>>
>>

[bxf]

The only helpful thing I can say is that I've seen some recovery
products pick up files that others had failed to pick up. I'd suggest
trying trial versions of a few different products - perhaps one will
work for you.

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

If your recovery program recovered all but one file, you should count
yourself very lucky.. that the unrecoverable file happened to be the most
important is just one of those things..

What you might need to do is to take ownership of the folder..

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;268019&sd=tech

--
Mike Hall
MVP - Windows Shell/User


"Newbiephotographer" > wrote in message
...
>I am desperate. I was helping a friend with her computer. She had a drive
>that would not boot and she could not figure out how to get into BIOS.
>Anyway, I removed my secondary hard drive, installed hers on my machine and
>fixed her problem. I shut down Windows XP Pro and reinstalled my hard
>drive BUT WINXP PRO WAS STILL SHUTTING DOWN when I reconnected my hard
>drive and it appears that it has written some information from her hard
>drive onto mine. I restarted my computer and my secondary hard drive
>appears to be hers. My drive is a 160 Gb NTFS drive and Windows is still
>showing the information for her 40 Gb Fat 32 drive. I purchased a recovery
>program and saved 99% of the files from the drive, except for the most
>important file! I keep all of my family photo's in a Jetico BestCrypt file
>so that no one would have access if my computer was ever breached or
>stolen. I don't want to lose that file. I believe that either the
>partition information or the MBR (I think that it is a MBR not a FAT table
>for NTFS) is either corrupt or damaged. Any help would be appreciated.

>

[Harry Ohrn]

What recovery program are you using? What happens when you try to recover
the Jetico file using your recovery program? Is the file found but corrupt?
Is it missing? As mentioned you must never plug and unplug drives from a
running system. Becareful with the tools you are using to try and fix the
problem. If you write data to the drive you run the risk of overwriting or
corrupting files that can be retrieved.

You might need to see if a professional service can find your file for you.
--

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


"Newbiephotographer" > wrote in message
...
> I am desperate. I was helping a friend with her computer. She had a
drive
> that would not boot and she could not figure out how to get into BIOS.
> Anyway, I removed my secondary hard drive, installed hers on my machine
and
> fixed her problem. I shut down Windows XP Pro and reinstalled my hard
drive
> BUT WINXP PRO WAS STILL SHUTTING DOWN when I reconnected my hard drive and
> it appears that it has written some information from her hard drive onto
> mine. I restarted my computer and my secondary hard drive appears to be
> hers. My drive is a 160 Gb NTFS drive and Windows is still showing the
> information for her 40 Gb Fat 32 drive. I purchased a recovery program
and
> saved 99% of the files from the drive, except for the most important file!
> I keep all of my family photo's in a Jetico BestCrypt file so that no one
> would have access if my computer was ever breached or stolen. I don't
want
> to lose that file. I believe that either the partition information or the
> MBR (I think that it is a MBR not a FAT table for NTFS) is either corrupt
or
> damaged. Any help would be appreciated.
>
>

[Harry Ohrn]

Have you tried shutting down the computer completely and removing the second
drive, restarting the computer without the second drive and get back to
windows then shutdown again, reconnect the second drive and reboot?

--

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


"Newbiephotographer" > wrote in message
...
> Anyone with some Recovery Console experience? There is a FIXMBR command
in
> Recovery Console but I am not sure how to use it. Will it destroy
> everything if it does not work? Any help appreciated.
> "T.S." > wrote in message
> ...
> > Reconnecting and disconnecting hard drives or any electronic device
inside
> > the computer system while the power is still running, even before
> > shut-down
> > is complete is insane! You have for sure re-written the MBR on that
drive.
> > It
> > is also highly possible that you have lost and or courrpeted data on
that
> > drive that will not be recoverable. Try a "checkdisk" run on your drive
> > that
> > has had the MBR re-written. Do this by going into - "start/my
computer/the
> > find the drive that needs to be checked. Right click on that drive's
icon
> > and
> > then select properties, then select tools the check both boxes under
error
> > checking the drive. Then reboot and let checkdisk run its process. This
> > will
> > take a while. Grab a soda and a snack and hope that you'll get most of
> > your
> > data recovered when checkdisk completes.
> >
> > "Newbiephotographer" wrote:
> >
> >> I am desperate. I was helping a friend with her computer. She had a
> >> drive
> >> that would not boot and she could not figure out how to get into BIOS.
> >> Anyway, I removed my secondary hard drive, installed hers on my machine
> >> and
> >> fixed her problem. I shut down Windows XP Pro and reinstalled my hard
> >> drive
> >> BUT WINXP PRO WAS STILL SHUTTING DOWN when I reconnected my hard drive
> >> and
> >> it appears that it has written some information from her hard drive
onto
> >> mine. I restarted my computer and my secondary hard drive appears to
be
> >> hers. My drive is a 160 Gb NTFS drive and Windows is still showing the
> >> information for her 40 Gb Fat 32 drive. I purchased a recovery program
> >> and
> >> saved 99% of the files from the drive, except for the most important
> >> file!
> >> I keep all of my family photo's in a Jetico BestCrypt file so that no
one
> >> would have access if my computer was ever breached or stolen. I don't
> >> want
> >> to lose that file. I believe that either the partition information or
> >> the
> >> MBR (I think that it is a MBR not a FAT table for NTFS) is either
corrupt
> >> or
> >> damaged. Any help would be appreciated.
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>

[Newbiephotographer]

I am using Stellar Phoenix recovery software and I can not say enough good
things about it. It has recovered over 100,000 files from the disc and is
only having a problem with two. Only one of the two I care about. The
software finds the file but thinks it is only 2 GB when in fact it was
closer to 10 Gb. The software has recovered several other Jetico files with
no problem so I know that it is not an encryption thing. I am trying
everything I can with the Phoenix software and I am writing all data to
another disc so that I do not corrupt the original hard drive. I am
thinking about using "Recovery Console" in Win XP to try to fix the
partition and then repair the MBR. The problem is that I am not familure
with Recovery Console so I am hesitent to use it. I do not know if it will
corrupt the disc further or not. Has anybody used Recovery Console before?
Help Please.

"Harry Ohrn" > wrote in message
...
> What recovery program are you using? What happens when you try to recover
> the Jetico file using your recovery program? Is the file found but
> corrupt?
> Is it missing? As mentioned you must never plug and unplug drives from a
> running system. Becareful with the tools you are using to try and fix the
> problem. If you write data to the drive you run the risk of overwriting or
> corrupting files that can be retrieved.
>
> You might need to see if a professional service can find your file for
> you.
> --
>
> Harry Ohrn MS-MVP [Shell/User]
> www.webtree.ca/windowsxp
>
>
> "Newbiephotographer" > wrote in message
> ...
>> I am desperate. I was helping a friend with her computer. She had a
> drive
>> that would not boot and she could not figure out how to get into BIOS.
>> Anyway, I removed my secondary hard drive, installed hers on my machine
> and
>> fixed her problem. I shut down Windows XP Pro and reinstalled my hard
> drive
>> BUT WINXP PRO WAS STILL SHUTTING DOWN when I reconnected my hard drive
>> and
>> it appears that it has written some information from her hard drive onto
>> mine. I restarted my computer and my secondary hard drive appears to be
>> hers. My drive is a 160 Gb NTFS drive and Windows is still showing the
>> information for her 40 Gb Fat 32 drive. I purchased a recovery program
> and
>> saved 99% of the files from the drive, except for the most important
>> file!
>> I keep all of my family photo's in a Jetico BestCrypt file so that no one
>> would have access if my computer was ever breached or stolen. I don't
> want
>> to lose that file. I believe that either the partition information or
>> the
>> MBR (I think that it is a MBR not a FAT table for NTFS) is either corrupt
> or
>> damaged. Any help would be appreciated.
>>
>>
>
>