Hi, My computer recently shat itself. Basicly when it turns on it dosent entirely boot up; it dosen't get to the XP loading symbol it just gets a black screen with a white flashing undascore (PS: Not DOS mode). I purchaced a new hard drive and have XP installed on that but i still can't access my other hard drive. The seccond drive appears in My Computer but says that i need to format it to use it. The drive still has alot of files on it that i would like to retrive so is there an easy way to get the drive to work so it will boot up so i can keep my files and settings or is its life over? I would like to get the old drive working or at least ghost it to the new one to retain all the same drivers, programs and settings, is that possible.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

Nick

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"Were on the top of the food chain luv, everything's on the menu."

Try this. goto control panel, admin tools , computer management , Open up the tab that says storage, then disk management . Now it should show you all the drives u have and a graphical display. If you see the disk up there. right click on the icon and click make partition active. That might activate it within windows.

Alternatively are both drives set to master? if its an old drive might need a jumper to set it to slave. I know I had that problem with a few old IDE drives, and an older SATA.

If no go


I would take the drive you want to check out, and try it with another computer. Just to eliminate any issues with that mobo. Can you access the drive at all? have you run a scan disk to see if it can access?.

hope that helps. Off to bed now !.

if that still doesnt work,, well I dont like your chances.. if you cant even access it the could be fried. But even a fucked drive often lets u get into good sectors

Run check disk over the drive, easiest way to recover the data on it, if it's recoverable.

Warning - It may take anywhere from a couple of hours through to a couple of days depending on the size of the drive and the amount of damage.

To run it,

1) Open command prompt - start --> run --> cmd --> press enter
2) Type in chkdsk Driveletter: /r - drive letter is the drive its appearing as in windows, like c: or d: you can see this if you find the drive in my computer

It will run through a series of 5 steps which involves scanning for bad sectors and recovers any files it can find, where possible fixing errors and then re-indexes the drive.

- Cheers Troy

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Osama Bin Hooning
Senior Terrorist Operative
Perth-Wrx

It may be not reading the BIOS. Age of the PC?
Try replacing the battery on the m.board.

+1
Only note on that, 1, I've found it can be handy to run scandisk on it first. (right click on it in My Computer --> Properties --> Tools --> Error Checking (check now)
As sometimes its a minor issue and it fixes it rather quickly. If it cant do it, then suggest you do as Troy suggested.

Out of curiousity, is it a SATA hard drive and, is it a MSI motherboard (how old is it?)

If it's coming up in My Computer then it's not a jumper or battery issue.

Get a data recovery program like http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/file...htm?language=1 (free) and scan the drive.

Have you run all the hotfixes/service packs on the new instance of XP ?
I had a similar issue and the volume could be read fine after I applied SP2.

Run chkdsk or get a copy of norton disk doctor.

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[COLOR="Gray"]550Nm off a 2L... Just wish it was in the dak dak...[/COLOR]

If all of that doesn't work, try a Linux PC or even an apple. You can usually force mount in either OS and get the data off.

Edit:

If it is really important must have data, send it to:

Forensic Data
(03) 9867 7773
Lvl 16/ 180 Lonsdale St
Melbourne VIC 3000
Show map...
http://www.forensicdatarecovery.com.au

My company has used these people many, many times over and they have always come through with the goods, however.... Prepare to get ass raped on the price though, they do the job but you will PAY!