can't get info from drive

[fyrguy316]

i have 250 gig hard drive that had xp on it. i came home one day and turned it on and it would only boot to welcome screen. i typed in my password and would get desktop and wall paper and thats it. no icons or task bar. booted to safe mode and tried a virus scan and a few other things and still the same thing. put xp disk in and tried automated system recovery, but didn't realize i needed a set of floppies with info on them. i backed out of that and didn't bother with it, but then on reboot all it wanted was a floppy disk. would not boot to drive at all. a friend told me to try reinstalling xp like you could with the old 95 and 98. it would fix the OS but keep all info. that didn't work, now it says the drive has no file system and i can't access it at all. i wanted to hook it up as a slave drive in another computer to get some important files from it then just dump the whole drive and start over, but i need those files. is there anyway to get a file system on the drive without formatting the drive and losing the info i need from it? i just need to get into the drive long enough to get my files transfered and then i can dump the drive and format it. thank you in advance for any and all helpful info.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Sounds like the HDD has crapped out on you. If the drive is that important to you you might be able to recover the file system with some data recovery software. But if its a hardware failyer on the drive then it may all be lost. Time to take a lesson from all of this and start maintaining backups of all your data.

 

[KGB]

Try exactly what your friend suggested: slave it into another PC.

If you can read the important files, copy them PRONTO.

 

[fyrguy316]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
Sounds like the HDD has crapped out on you. If the drive is that important to you you might be able to recover the file system with some data recovery software. But if its a hardware failyer on the drive then it may all be lost. Time to take a lesson from all of this and start maintaining backups of all your data.

unfortunately your not the first one i've herad this from and i'm hoping thats not the problem. just bought the drive, not new though. someone mentioned to me about a low level copy? ever here of it? and yes i did learn the hard way, time to back it all up!!! thanks for the info.

 

[fyrguy316]

Originally posted by: KGBMAN
Try exactly what your friend suggested: slave it into another PC.

If you can read the important files, copy them PRONTO.

tried slaving it into another computer. it says the drive is not formatted with a file system. if it formats it to ntfs it will wipe out the drives info and thats what i'm trying to avoid, atleast till i can see if there is a way to recover the few files i need.

 

[pcgeek11]

time to back it all up!!! thanks for the info.

No. That time has already past you by.

Time to start over and backing up fresh.

 

[mpilchfamily]

Well if you purchased it used then you never know what its been threw. Even if its a brand nnew drive there seams to be problems with it. Hope there wasn't anything too important on it.

There is another possibility that may be able to fix it but it will cost you.

Spinrite is the best drive recovery tool availible. If the hardware of the drive is still fuctioning correctly spinright can find and fix most any problems on the disks. It may not recover all of it but it can sure give you most of it.
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Its all a matter of weatyher that data is worth $89 too you. But its an excelent tool to have. You may even be able to earn that money back performing software recovery services for friends and family.

 

[alizee]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
Spinrite is the best drive recovery tool availible. If the hardware of the drive is still fuctioning correctly spinright can find and fix most any problems on the disks. It may not recover all of it but it can sure give you most of it.
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

I was just about to mention spinrite. My brother had it cranking away for three days on his 120GB that failed, but he recovered his data and the drive is working again (though he doesn't keep anything important on it...)

 

[fyrguy316]

Originally posted by: mpilchfamily
Well if you purchased it used then you never know what its been threw. Even if its a brand nnew drive there seams to be problems with it. Hope there wasn't anything too important on it.

There is another possibility that may be able to fix it but it will cost you.

Spinrite is the best drive recovery tool availible. If the hardware of the drive is still fuctioning correctly spinright can find and fix most any problems on the disks. It may not recover all of it but it can sure give you most of it.
http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

Its all a matter of weatyher that data is worth $89 too you. But its an excelent tool to have. You may even be able to earn that money back performing software recovery services for friends and family.

i may look into this. never knew this was a possibility. thanks alot.