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AndrewB

How to salvage data from operable but unbootable laptop drive

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My old hard drive is unbootable, but judging by the fact that the Windows XP screen runs about halfway before blue-screening, it stands to reason that data can be salvaged.

Of course, considering the fact that laptops can only use one hard drive at a time, this makes for a dilemma. How do I access the old hard drive as a secondary source, using some other boot medium as the primary boot source?

Enter PEBuilder, a utility that allows make a Windows XP boot-CD based on your operating system CD. The thing is, the utility doesn't agree with the Dell-based pre-registered Home Edition version.

In short, warez plz.

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You mean you didn't actually get a real CD with the OS on it? Figures. If you did, there might be something in the recovery console that could help.

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There is nothing on the diagnostics CD that allows for PCMCIA network support for file copying.

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Bloodshedder said:

Take it out, get an inexpensive 2.5" to 3.5" IDE drive connector converter, and hook it up to a desktop computer.

That's what I was going to say...I've known people at work who had to do this before. It works well, from what he says. Heck, he used that to populate the drive on another computer since the laptop didn't have any drives (got it at a pawn shop).

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here is a practice you people really should do.

when you install windows make 2 or 3 partions, prefered 3.

1st partion is used for windows only, maybe like 2-5GB and maybe programs like AIM and such
2nd partion is for everything else
3rd partions is for backup and swap.

that way if windows fails you dont lose everything. you can simply reinstall and still have your stuff.

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Sephiroth said:

Useless advice

If the drive dies, it matters not if there are 1, 2 or 23 partitions on it :P

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If the drive is working but not bootable, try "FDISK /MBR" it may rebuild master boot record.

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And what are the chances that such an action would screw everything up and actually destroy an existing opportunity to salvage the files?

Again, the Windows XP window with the scrolling bar loads and displays for about 10 seconds, and then a texty blue screen flashes followed by instant reboot.

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AndrewB said:

And what are the chances that such an action would screw everything up and actually destroy an existing opportunity to salvage the files?

Actually, pretty high. "fdisk /mbr" is often touted as a solution to these sorts of problems when there's a possibility that it can mess up your drive even more. But regardless, it's obvious that nothing is wrong with your master boot record or partition table, so it's most obviously a corrupt OS installation, which might point to bad or unreadable sectors on the hard drive, or maybe Windows just ended up eating itself.

If this laptop has a floppy drive, you could be able to boot off a Windows XP boot floppy that will take the necessary procedures needed to reinstall your operating system. This is assuming that the Dell CD that came with the system contains a full and unmolested copy of Windows. Of course, if that was the case, I would wonder why you haven't already tried booting off the CD and reinstalling the OS.

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My dell came with no XP disc. The day I want to format, the day I have to redownload my legal copy of windows XP

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You could try to boot via safe mode , press F8 on start up and select safe mode, if you get into windows that way, start>run>c:\windows/system32/restore/rstrui.exe try to restore to an earlier date.

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Bloodshedder, you seem to misunderstand. What would be the point in reinstalling the OS? That would involve wiping the hard drive, which completely defeats the purpose of salvaging files. I have two hard drives: One that completely works and a bootable one with an unbootable operating system. I want to copy files from the bad hard drive to the good one.

I don't care about the old hard drive in terms of a chunk of metal.

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No, it is you who misunderstands. Reinstalling the OS does NOT have to involve formatting the hard drive. You can reinstall a copy over your existing OS. This is what is termed a "repair" install, and can often fix some Windows problems. If doing this fixes your problem, then there's absolutely nothing physically wrong with the hard drive.

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Okay, don't go thinking that there's "absolutely nothing physically wrong with the hard drive," because this whole thing came about after several months of loud grinding sounds coming from the hard drive. During these intermittent grindings, the computer was frozen and inoperable. A diagnostics run through by tech support indicated a "fail" state of the hard drive. The tech guy said that this indicates that the hard drive needs to be replaced. Of course, at this point, the hard drive was already replaced.

So anyway, there is definitely something physically wrong with the hard drive.

And again, a boot disk is sort of what I'm looking for, but it's rather useless if I can't access network, CD, or some other media in which files can be copied.

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knoppix isn't overly great for this sort of thing since it tries to abstract you as much as possible from the hard drive making recovery a pain in the ass. Your best bet is just attaching the damaged drive to a desktop, as stated before, and grabbing files like that.

A repair install, btw, should fix things because if the problem is due to bad sectors or blocks on the disk then the OS installer won't put any data on those blocks (as long as you run some sort of disk check during the install). I wouldn't really trust a disk with bad sectors for very long though, so if that does repair it I'd still look into getting a new one.

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Sigh, how many times do I have to elaborate... I already have a new one. That's what I'm using right now.

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You might've specified that earlier. And in fact, you might've specified that the old drive was having operational problems earlier as well. Without all the information, how is anyone supposed to suggest a viable solution?

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Bloodshedder said:

You might've specified that earlier. And in fact, you might've specified that the old drive was having operational problems earlier as well. Without all the information, how is anyone supposed to suggest a viable solution?

AndrewB said:

I have two hard drives: One that completely works and a bootable one with an unbootable operating system.

The problem is that people are in such a rush that they tend to read half a post before offering advice.

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That does not imply physical problems, it is ambiguous. A bootable drive with an unbootable OS can have nothing wrong with the drive itself. That's the assumption I was going by.

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Okay, but anyway, the frequent grinding noises (as in waking me up at 5AM type grinding) definitely implies a hardware fault, and the Dell tech said that it was a hardware problem, so end of discussion AFAIK.

Also, I wouldn't want to try buying an adapter if the hard drive connector was proprietary.

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I'm just saying it might have been helpful to mention in your first post that (A.) There is a mechanical problem with the drive and (B.) That you already had a replacement drive and are getting along with that.

And no, the connectors are not proprietary. All 2.5" drives use a combined data and power connector. This 44-pin connector is essentially equivalent to the function that the 40-pin and 4-pin connectors serve in a desktop system with 3.5" and 5.25" drives. As you can see, there are several places you can go to get one, one of which being your local computer hardware store if they're any good.

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That's one option. Although I'd rather spend $1 to create a bootable CD than $10-15 for a cable that I'll only use once.

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So-- you have a fully-working HD along with your broken one. You need to grab files off of the broken HD, and you are fully capable of installing an OS on the computer, because you have two drives on it-- one of which still works. There is nothing physically stopping you from installing to a C: drive, and grabbing files from a broken D: drive(that you could easily buy an adapter for).

Maybe you should restate your problem... do you not have an OS to install? Do you need help assigning drive letters? Are you looking for WAREZ??!?

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