Need help retrieving my data from Hard Disk - this is quite long and detailed of what I tried to do....
Gateway GT4010 HDD WDC WD 2000BB-22GUC0 (200gB)
- Microsoft XP Media CenterEdition 2005
- No CDs or DVDs in drives, no external or other HDD connected
- computer was taking long time to boot, sluggish; so we ran disk defragment and then ran into big problems...
- on reboot, error message stating " windows did not start successfully, due to recent hardware or software might have caused this. Computer tried to reboot numerous times, but all unsuccessful. Tried to boot from last known good configuration - no luck. Tried to boot from the 3 Safe modes - all no luck.
- Was able to get into <F10> Boot Mode - was on "removable", changed it to Harddisk, tried again to reboot, no help
- Was able to get into <F2> Bios Settings - Hard disk Priority was Ch0 - was the above HDD
Ch1 was bootable add-in Cards
Under Advanced Bios--First Boot was CD ROM, changed it to Hard Disk, 2nd Boot was Hard Disk, changed it to CD ROM - tried to reboot again - No help.
Put all the settings back the way they originally were...
- Tried <F11> Recovery to see if I can repair without wiping out HDD--but only choice showing was "Hard Disk Preparation" - and question - "Do you want to continue?" and only "OK" as the choice - did not select this, and could not back out of this page, so I shut computer down with power button.
= So, I took other PC and attached my Gateway HDD to the other computer, now this drive is called "D". As soon as I turned the computer on, after all hooked up, message appeared stating "Check Disk "D", checked for consistency. 3 Stages - 1st stage ok, 2nd stage, found numerous errors in indesx $I30 in file 76016. It appeared to fix these files with a "Recovering orphaned file into directory file 76016" listing the file name - most were .jpg and .gif files. There were numerous files listed.
Then Stage 3 - "replacing bad clusters in log file", "adding 7 bad clusters to the Bad clusters file" and a few other items, but I was too slow to write them all down.
- This PC then booted up with no problems. However I could not access the "D" Hard disk, when I tried, received message "Disk in Drive D: not formatted, do you want to format now?" I selected NO, since I thought that would wipe out the data. Thought this would all work out great after it did a check disk and appeared to fix some problems.
= I shut down this PC, and put the original HDD back into the Gateway to see what would happen. NOW the message I received was "Disk read error occurred, press cont-alt-delete to restart". I did this but no luck again.
**So, now I'm really stuck - is there any way to retrieve the data and repair the disk?
Thank you, Thank you!
roo

Go back to your slave setup.

Did you change the drive jumper to slave?

Or is everything Cable Select?

Did you install on the same channel/cable?

You can also try the WDD diagnostic utility:

WD Support > Downloads > Select Product




:>

Originally Posted by b747c9

...received message "Disk in Drive D: not formatted, do you want to format now?" I selected NO, since I thought that would wipe out the data.

Yes that would cause you to possibly lose you data. Actually that would mark all the sectors that your files are on as "available" and set up a new file system. Technically it is still possible to recover data if the sectors haven't been overwritten. It sounds though that the disk defragmentation messed up your files if not the file system when it stopped and wasn't completed. Or was it completed? I can't tell based on your post. When defragmenting a drive the OS is actually moving the files around on your drive. I would not try to boot from that drive again and apparently it is too messed up for windows to help you out although it was a good idea to try. If your files are really important specialized software which is expensive might be able to restore some of it, at least what hasn't been overwritten. You could even ship your drive of to engineers to have them recover what they can. Google data recovery, look at the prices and decide if it is worth it. I don't know of any brands of software in particular to try. Thats all I know to tell you. Maybe someone else would have something. I take it that you didn't back up your files.

Oh I was working on this while jephree was posting on your problem.

Originally Posted by jephree

You can also try the WDD diagnostic utility

That is a good idea.

By the way, what system did you use to test your drive on? If it is a windows system older than windows 2000 (like ME or 98) then it wouldn't have been able to read the NTFS file system which is the file system that XP is installed on by default. Therefore it would have told you that it wasn't formated and would want you to reformat the drive.

Alternative route to pulling off Data on a Windows Drive that is borked.

Yet Another Technology Site: How to recover your Windows files

Thanks all for your replies - i'll try what I can.
First off, the Gateway OS is MS Windows XP media Ctr edition 2005 - original no other OS, 2.2 GHz, 512kb L2 cache, 1024 mb DDR, 200gb HD (7200rpm).
To townsbg - My son said he thought the defrag finished successfully, but wasn't watching it, and it tried to reboot, but unsuccessful as mentioned above. After numerous tries to reboot, I then hooked this HD to the older PC - no name brand, w/ AMD Athlon XP1600 133mHz, ram 512mb pc2100 DIMM running on Windows XP home edition 2002 with Serv pak 2 and a 40gb HD. I was hoping to backup this HD to my external HD, but didn't do it before defragging. Never had problems with defragging, but i guess you live and learn.
To jephree - my computer knowledge is limited and I don't understand your comments: "Go back to your slave setup." -> I never saw anything on this, and the only thing i was able to get to was BIOS and Boot mode, but now can't even get to that. Is slave set up the area in BIOS settings where you can change the boot drive priorities from HD to CD ROM to whatever?
" is everything Cable Select?" I don't know what you are referring to here??
"Did you install on the same channel/cable?" again, does this refer to boot priority in BIOS settings?
I will try the WDD diagnostic utility that you suggest - but if I can't get beyond the "Disk read error" I think I'm out of luck, unless I rehook up the HD into the old PC.

- I don't have any special programs or work stuff per se - It's all my wife's and kids homework and tons of pictures.
again, thanks all

= So, I took other PC and attached my Gateway HDD to the other computer, now this drive is called "D". As soon as I turned the computer on, after all hooked up, message appeared stating "Check Disk "D", checked for consistency. 3 Stages - 1st stage ok, 2nd stage, found numerous errors in indesx $I30 in file 76016. It appeared to fix these files with a "Recovering orphaned file into directory file 76016" listing the file name - most were .jpg and .gif files. There were numerous files listed.
Then Stage 3 - "replacing bad clusters in log file", "adding 7 bad clusters to the Bad clusters file" and a few other items, but I was too slow to write them all down.
- This PC then booted up with no problems. However I could not access the "D" Hard disk, when I tried, received message "Disk in Drive D: not formatted, do you want to format now?" I selected NO, since I thought that would wipe out the data. Thought this would all work out great after it did a check disk and appeared to fix some problems.
= I shut down this PC, and put the original HDD back into the Gateway to see what would happen. NOW the message I received was "Disk read error occurred, press cont-alt-delete to restart". I did this but no luck again.

I took the above to mean you moved the drive into another computer as a slave which is the way to get your data.

If you meant you actually replaced the hard drives and tried to boot the problem drive then no wonder stuff happened there. You cannot do that.

Anyway if you didn't "slave" it that is the way to get your data.

Guide here:

Hard Drive Recovery Tutorial - How To Slave A Hard Drive

I believe I made it a slave - I only hooked up the original Gateway HD to the old PC - i did not remove the old PC HD. I disconnected a cable to utilize that slot for the Gateway HD.
I'm reviewing the Western Digital site you recommended and seeing what I need to do to check the HD. I might have messed up the HD by hooking it to a PC that had OS XP Home and not the same XP media Edition that the Gateway has?? I need to burn a Data Lifeguard Diagnostic CD from WD and hopefully can get into the bios to boot from the CD and not from the HD. That'll be the trick!

The slave idea is to retrieve data. You cannot boot that operating system if that is what you tried to do.

You need to set the jumper to slave and put it on a middle (grey) IDE ribbon connection.

You then boot the computer with its original hard drive and operating system.

You can then access your problem drive to retrieve data.

It doesn't matter what the operating system is as you are not using the operating system.

You are simply accessing files on this drive.

ok, great, i'll try that - i'll move jumper from CS to slave, and attach the ribbon to the middle. Does it matter if it's the middle or the end? one of the tutorials shows the bad HD connected to the end of ribbon on the good HD on the middle one.
Also - how can one tell if the HD is formatted as FAT32 or NTFS. Both are XP but diff versions - i'm guessing they are different since the old computer didn't recognize the HD and asked if I wanted to reformat??