Need Data Recovery from HD

"jazz" wrote in message
... a bunch of crap ... OP was not
that smart - MS Support was stupid - and Jazz finishes it off.

- Do NOT write to the victim disk at all, no more checkdisks or whatever.
- Get some read-only data recovery software (demo versions intially) and
have it scan the victim disk.
- If it doesn't find the data, simply try another product (again, a demo
intially). All products have their strenghts and weaknesses. Someone may
recommend product X because it helped this person out in *one specific
scenario* and another person may recommend product Y for the same reason.
You need to find the product that helps in *your case* and you can only find
it by simply trying.

--
Joep

- Harry Ohrn -
You will need decent recovery software. Some of it can be quite
expensive.
One of the best tools I've used is Disk Commander from Winternals

http://www.winternals.com/products/r...pid=ap#diskcom
however it is definitely in the higher end price range.

- Nehmo -
I just tired it. It said, disk could not be mounted. Maybe that's
because the victim disk is larger than the disk I'm running DC from. I
haven't read much about DC yet, but it seems any recovery software is
going to at least require a place to put the recovered data. I'm
shopping around for a 120 GB hard drive.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

- Harry Ohrn -
You will need decent recovery software. Some of it can be quite
expensive.
One of the best tools I've used is Disk Commander from Winternals

http://www.winternals.com/products/r...pid=ap#diskcom
however it is definitely in the higher end price range.

- Nehmo -
I just tired it. It said, disk could not be mounted. Maybe that's
because the victim disk is larger than the disk I'm running DC from. I
haven't read much about DC yet, but it seems any recovery software is
going to at least require a place to put the recovered data. I'm
shopping around for a 120 GB hard drive.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

- Harry Ohrn -
You will need decent recovery software. Some of it can be quite
expensive.
One of the best tools I've used is Disk Commander from Winternals

http://www.winternals.com/products/r...pid=ap#diskcom
however it is definitely in the higher end price range.

- Nehmo -
I just tired it. It said, disk could not be mounted. Maybe that's
because the victim disk is larger than the disk I'm running DC from. I
haven't read much about DC yet, but it seems any recovery software is
going to at least require a place to put the recovered data. I'm
shopping around for a 120 GB hard drive.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

Hi, Joep, and Nehmo.

OP was not
that smart - MS Support was stupid - and Jazz finishes it off.

Agreed! Especially this line in the original post:
"I called MS, and the guy ran through another repair-install with me and
then had me run CHKDSK /R (if I remember correctly) on the 80 GB HD
(jumpered as slave) from DOS."

First, of course, Chkdsk /R "implies /F", as anybody can see by simply
typing Chkdsk /? at the Command Prompt. In other words, either /R or /F
writes to the HD. This is just what is needed if Chkdsk has correctly
diagnosed the problem. But, if Chkdsk is wrong - and it is wrong too
often! - then either /R or /F completes the job of making the volume
UNrecoverable.

That happened to me last year. I left the room while my computer was
booting. When I returned, Chkdsk was busily "fixing" the third volume on my
second HD, having already "fixed" the second volume there. These were the
first and second logical drives in the extended partition; both were NTFS.
My guess is that some cable glitch had caused the HD to report some error on
boot-up and Chkdsk had "taken the bit in its teeth" and proceeded to repair
the wrong problem. :( Both volumes were unrecoverable, but only the
second one (Drive E was important to me. Fortunately, I had plenty of
unpartitioned space on my third HD, so I created a new logical drive there,
assigned it Drive E: after reassigning my original E: to Z:, and used the
new E: while searching for a solution.

After about 3 months, I found R-Studio, which I downloaded (for about $70)
from www.r-tt.com. With this, I was able to recover almost all my data from
Drive Z:, after which I reformatted Z:, moved back the data from the
temporary E:, restored the drive letter and continued. R-Studio may or may
not work in your case.

Of course, this whole problem would have been much worse if it had happened
to my System Partition or Boot Volume. Since all I lost was a data volume,
I could continue to boot and run normally while looking for an answer.

But, running Chkdsk on an NTFS volume while booted into MS-DOS from a
Win9x/ME boot floppy seems the height of stupidity! Are you sure that's
what the MS techie advised, Nehmo? Did the techie know all the facts
(WinXP? NTFS?) of your situation?

Just a couple of other points: First, in spite of our imprecise use of
terms like "drive" and "partition", we don't actually format a "drive", but
a single volume at a time on the hard disk. When Disk Management or another
utility shows only 31.5 GB on your 80 GB HD, be sure to check that it is
showing the entire HD and not just a single volume on the disk. Second, if
you plug in your new HD (or your old 80 GB HD - after recovering all you can
and are ready to wipe and reformat it) and reinstall WinXP on it, be sure
that you don't have any other HDs connected and enabled at the time - at
least not one that holds a bootable partition. If WinXP Setup detects an
Active (bootable) partition on ANY HD, it probably will assign C: to that
partition; you may find that WinXP on your new HD boots from F: or some
other letter. WinXP will be perfectly happy booting from F:, but it
confuses us humans so much that most users who find themselves in that
situation end up reinstalling once more so that WinXP boots from C:.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP

"Joep" j o e p @ d i y d a t a r e c o v e r y . n l wrote in message
-service-com...
"jazz" wrote in message
... a bunch of crap ... OP was
not
that smart - MS Support was stupid - and Jazz finishes it off.

- Do NOT write to the victim disk at all, no more checkdisks or whatever.
- Get some read-only data recovery software (demo versions intially) and
have it scan the victim disk.
- If it doesn't find the data, simply try another product (again, a demo
intially). All products have their strenghts and weaknesses. Someone may
recommend product X because it helped this person out in *one specific
scenario* and another person may recommend product Y for the same reason.
You need to find the product that helps in *your case* and you can only
find
it by simply trying.

--
Joep

- R. C. White -
But, running Chkdsk on an NTFS volume while booted into MS-DOS from a
Win9x/ME boot floppy seems the height of stupidity! Are you sure
that's
what the MS techie advised, Nehmo? Did the techie know all the facts
(WinXP? NTFS?) of your situation?

- Nehmo -
When the tech, Ron, answered, my first thought was that he spoke English
like a native speaker and that he must be here instead of India. He
turned out to be in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (This was interesting
because my wife and I plan to soon move to Calgary, the city south of
Edmonton. We're in Kansas City, Kansas now.) He worked for MS itself,
and he only handled XP install and XP related issues.

He said he had ten years in support. Now that I think about it, he also
said he was twenty-six. Maybe he started at sixteen. It's not
impossible.

I was on the phone for around an hour. Ron was clear I was installing
WinXP Home and that the file system was NTFS. I wasn't booted from a
floppy. I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt. I wasn't unfamiliar with
the program and didn't realize CHKDSK /F was going to write to the
drive.

I see my next step now as getting a 120 GB HD. Then I can try some
recovery programs.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

- R. C. White -
But, running Chkdsk on an NTFS volume while booted into MS-DOS from a
Win9x/ME boot floppy seems the height of stupidity! Are you sure
that's
what the MS techie advised, Nehmo? Did the techie know all the facts
(WinXP? NTFS?) of your situation?

- Nehmo -
When the tech, Ron, answered, my first thought was that he spoke English
like a native speaker and that he must be here instead of India. He
turned out to be in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (This was interesting
because my wife and I plan to soon move to Calgary, the city south of
Edmonton. We're in Kansas City, Kansas now.) He worked for MS itself,
and he only handled XP install and XP related issues.

He said he had ten years in support. Now that I think about it, he also
said he was twenty-six. Maybe he started at sixteen. It's not
impossible.

I was on the phone for around an hour. Ron was clear I was installing
WinXP Home and that the file system was NTFS. I wasn't booted from a
floppy. I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt. I wasn't unfamiliar with
the program and didn't realize CHKDSK /F was going to write to the
drive.

I see my next step now as getting a 120 GB HD. Then I can try some
recovery programs.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

Certainly chkdsk.exe exists in any MS OS, this is its native utility. OTOH,
DOS version prompts to use scandisk.exe instead starting from DOS 6.2 when
MS has purchased scandisk.exe from P.Norton. Experienced user would never
run chkdsk.exe in DOS environment, this is NT utility in conjunction with
chkntfs.exe.

Certainly chkdsk.exe exists in any MS OS, this is its native utility. OTOH,
DOS version prompts to use scandisk.exe instead starting from DOS 6.2 when
MS has purchased scandisk.exe from P.Norton. Experienced user would never
run chkdsk.exe in DOS environment, this is NT utility in conjunction with
chkntfs.exe.

- R. C. White -
But, running Chkdsk on an NTFS volume while booted into MS-DOS from a
Win9x/ME boot floppy seems the height of stupidity! Are you sure
that's
what the MS techie advised, Nehmo? Did the techie know all the facts
(WinXP? NTFS?) of your situation?

- Nehmo -
When the tech, Ron, answered, my first thought was that he spoke English
like a native speaker and that he must be here instead of India. He
turned out to be in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (This was interesting
because my wife and I plan to soon move to Calgary, the city south of
Edmonton. We're in Kansas City, Kansas now.) He worked for MS itself,
and he only handled XP install and XP related issues.

He said he had ten years in support. Now that I think about it, he also
said he was twenty-six. Maybe he started at sixteen. It's not
impossible.

I was on the phone for around an hour. Ron was clear I was installing
WinXP Home and that the file system was NTFS. I wasn't booted from a
floppy. I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt. I wasn't unfamiliar with
the program and didn't realize CHKDSK /F was going to write to the
drive.

I see my next step now as getting a 120 GB HD. Then I can try some
recovery programs.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

Certainly chkdsk.exe exists in any MS OS, this is its native utility. OTOH,
DOS version prompts to use scandisk.exe instead starting from DOS 6.2 when
MS has purchased scandisk.exe from P.Norton. Experienced user would never
run chkdsk.exe in DOS environment, this is NT utility in conjunction with
chkntfs.exe.

If you have a network with another computer that has availible storage, you
should be able to transfer the stuff to it across the network. This might
negate the need to buy another drive if money is tight for you.(especially
after buying the recovery software). -Good luck with it.


"Nehmo Sergheyev" wrote in message
...
- R. C. White -
But, running Chkdsk on an NTFS volume while booted into MS-DOS from a
Win9x/ME boot floppy seems the height of stupidity! Are you sure
that's
what the MS techie advised, Nehmo? Did the techie know all the facts
(WinXP? NTFS?) of your situation?

- Nehmo -
When the tech, Ron, answered, my first thought was that he spoke English
like a native speaker and that he must be here instead of India. He
turned out to be in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (This was interesting
because my wife and I plan to soon move to Calgary, the city south of
Edmonton. We're in Kansas City, Kansas now.) He worked for MS itself,
and he only handled XP install and XP related issues.

He said he had ten years in support. Now that I think about it, he also
said he was twenty-six. Maybe he started at sixteen. It's not
impossible.

I was on the phone for around an hour. Ron was clear I was installing
WinXP Home and that the file system was NTFS. I wasn't booted from a
floppy. I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt. I wasn't unfamiliar with
the program and didn't realize CHKDSK /F was going to write to the
drive.

I see my next step now as getting a 120 GB HD. Then I can try some
recovery programs.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

If you have a network with another computer that has availible storage, you
should be able to transfer the stuff to it across the network. This might
negate the need to buy another drive if money is tight for you.(especially
after buying the recovery software). -Good luck with it.


"Nehmo Sergheyev" wrote in message
...
- R. C. White -
But, running Chkdsk on an NTFS volume while booted into MS-DOS from a
Win9x/ME boot floppy seems the height of stupidity! Are you sure
that's
what the MS techie advised, Nehmo? Did the techie know all the facts
(WinXP? NTFS?) of your situation?

- Nehmo -
When the tech, Ron, answered, my first thought was that he spoke English
like a native speaker and that he must be here instead of India. He
turned out to be in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (This was interesting
because my wife and I plan to soon move to Calgary, the city south of
Edmonton. We're in Kansas City, Kansas now.) He worked for MS itself,
and he only handled XP install and XP related issues.

He said he had ten years in support. Now that I think about it, he also
said he was twenty-six. Maybe he started at sixteen. It's not
impossible.

I was on the phone for around an hour. Ron was clear I was installing
WinXP Home and that the file system was NTFS. I wasn't booted from a
floppy. I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt. I wasn't unfamiliar with
the program and didn't realize CHKDSK /F was going to write to the
drive.

I see my next step now as getting a 120 GB HD. Then I can try some
recovery programs.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

If you have a network with another computer that has availible storage, you
should be able to transfer the stuff to it across the network. This might
negate the need to buy another drive if money is tight for you.(especially
after buying the recovery software). -Good luck with it.


"Nehmo Sergheyev" wrote in message
...
- R. C. White -
But, running Chkdsk on an NTFS volume while booted into MS-DOS from a
Win9x/ME boot floppy seems the height of stupidity! Are you sure
that's
what the MS techie advised, Nehmo? Did the techie know all the facts
(WinXP? NTFS?) of your situation?

- Nehmo -
When the tech, Ron, answered, my first thought was that he spoke English
like a native speaker and that he must be here instead of India. He
turned out to be in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (This was interesting
because my wife and I plan to soon move to Calgary, the city south of
Edmonton. We're in Kansas City, Kansas now.) He worked for MS itself,
and he only handled XP install and XP related issues.

He said he had ten years in support. Now that I think about it, he also
said he was twenty-six. Maybe he started at sixteen. It's not
impossible.

I was on the phone for around an hour. Ron was clear I was installing
WinXP Home and that the file system was NTFS. I wasn't booted from a
floppy. I ran CHKDSK from the command prompt. I wasn't unfamiliar with
the program and didn't realize CHKDSK /F was going to write to the
drive.

I see my next step now as getting a 120 GB HD. Then I can try some
recovery programs.


--
*********************
* Nehmo Sergheyev *
*********************

But in Window NT/2K/XP, neither the command prompt or chkdsk are DOS programs.
Yes, chkdsk is the correct program for minor problems.

I doubt anyone has something better for NTFS. If it can't be fixed, you have
to copy with findntfs or a commerical alternative.

"Jetro" wrote in message
...
Certainly chkdsk.exe exists in any MS OS, this is its native utility. OTOH,
DOS version prompts to use scandisk.exe instead starting from DOS 6.2 when
MS has purchased scandisk.exe from P.Norton. Experienced user would never
run chkdsk.exe in DOS environment, this is NT utility in conjunction with
chkntfs.exe.