Data restoration from "invisible" disk

After a system crash, one of my hard disks became "invisible". BIOS
recognizes it, WinXP System info reports it, but Storage...Disk Management
reports it as an unknown filesystem.

Is there a SW available that would allow me to restore the data on the
disk? I tried "Norton System Works" and "PC Inspector Smart Recovery", but
these programs can only deal with visible drives.

Thanks

FEEB wrote:

After a system crash, one of my hard disks became "invisible". BIOS
recognizes it, WinXP System info reports it, but Storage...Disk
Management reports it as an unknown filesystem.

Is there a SW available that would allow me to restore the data on the
disk? I tried "Norton System Works" and "PC Inspector Smart
Recovery", but these programs can only deal with visible drives.

Since the drive is seen in the BIOS, I'd just use Knoppix or a Bart's PE
to get the data.

Knoppix is a Linux distro on a live cd. You will need a computer with
two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw OR a usb thumb drive with
enough capacity to hold your data. To get Knoppix, you need a computer
with a fast Internet connection and third-party burning software.
Download the Knoppix .iso from www.knoppix.net and create your bootable
cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows files. If
you are using the usb thumb drive, right-click on its icon (on the
Desktop) to get its properties and uncheck the box that says "Read
Only". Then click on it to open it. Note that the default mouse action
in the window manager used by Knoppix (KDE) is a single click to open
instead of the traditional MS Windows' double-click. Otherwise, use the
K3b burning program to burn the files to cd/dvd-r's.

You will need to create the Bart's PE yourself:
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

After you get the data off, you can format the drive if you need to.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

Malke - - you might be able to tackle with question too: Today, on my own
crash (see below) in Disk Management, I was unable to click on a Fat32
partition that had no drive designation; so I could not delete or format it
nor change it to NTFS - - any clairifications on that?

"Malke" wrote:

FEEB wrote:

After a system crash, one of my hard disks became "invisible". BIOS
recognizes it, WinXP System info reports it, but Storage...Disk
Management reports it as an unknown filesystem.

Is there a SW available that would allow me to restore the data on the
disk? I tried "Norton System Works" and "PC Inspector Smart
Recovery", but these programs can only deal with visible drives.

Since the drive is seen in the BIOS, I'd just use Knoppix or a Bart's PE
to get the data.

Knoppix is a Linux distro on a live cd. You will need a computer with
two cd drives, one of which is a cd/dvd-rw OR a usb thumb drive with
enough capacity to hold your data. To get Knoppix, you need a computer
with a fast Internet connection and third-party burning software.
Download the Knoppix .iso from www.knoppix.net and create your bootable
cd. Then boot with it and it will be able to see the Windows files. If
you are using the usb thumb drive, right-click on its icon (on the
Desktop) to get its properties and uncheck the box that says "Read
Only". Then click on it to open it. Note that the default mouse action
in the window manager used by Knoppix (KDE) is a single click to open
instead of the traditional MS Windows' double-click. Otherwise, use the
K3b burning program to burn the files to cd/dvd-r's.

You will need to create the Bart's PE yourself:
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

After you get the data off, you can format the drive if you need to.

Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User