Getting Data off a possibly Duff Drive

[leachim]

Hi

The BIOS will recognise the size of the drive and its parameters, but if trying to boot from it, it says invalid disk or HDD error.

I took it out of that computer and put it in a caddy in another computer, and the error came up to say it was not recognised.

Is there a program that can get at some of the valuable data I have on there, as the drive seems to spin, but the surface must be corrupted.

Thanks

Mike

 

[win2kpro]

You may want to try downloading the trial version of O&O Disk Recovery from;

http://www.oo-software.com/en/datarecovery/

and see if it can see the files.

You could also try a solution using a Knoppix Live CD I outlined at;

http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/471877-trying-bypass-windows-2000-pro-2.html

in post #18.

I honestly don't know whether Knoppix will be able to see the files or not but you want have a big investment to try it, just the time to download and burn a CD.

 

[leachim]

Thanks for the reply.

I got so far with 0&0 registration and found it only works with XP and not 98. Well the computer that wont boot is/was Wins 98 - is this no good ?

If I take the duff HD out and put it in an XP computer, would that work

Although if what we are talking about is a "boot" cd with its own os, does this matter ?

A bit confused....

Thanks

 

[win2kpro]

I'm sorry I didn't know O&O only worked with XP. Taking the drive out and putting it into an XP machine wouldn't help because 98 is still on the hard drive.

Try the Knoppix Live CD.

 

[win2kpro]

Although if what we are talking about is a "boot" cd with its own os, does this matter ?

The O&O CD has it's own operating system like a Knoppix Live CD. Neither program writes anything to the hard drive they just run off their own CD.

Knoppix requires a lot less resources than O&O and I feel sure it will work with Win98.

 

[leachim]

Hi

I used Knoppix, but it could not read any files off the drive - only one - Viglen.pqi.

Is there another utility in the Linux os that I should be using ?

Thanks

Mike

 

[win2kpro]

You may want to try a program called Recover My Files

http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

Read the information provided at the website. It says it works with FAT32 but I have never used the program and don't know that as a fact. I have seen a few postings on this board where people have used it (don't know on what systems) and it worked. Wish I could tell you more, but as I said I personally have never used the program.