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[Nickbat]

As you may know, I had a bit of a situation with my PC the other week. Happily, I retrieved all my work data and reloaded all my program software, so I'm up and running. However, there is quite a bit of data on my old Drive C that I would like to get back (photos, fonts, etc). So, I've decided to set myself the project of recovering what I can.

The new drive is IDE (as it was the weekend and I this was a spare I went ahead and fitted without going down the SATA route). The old drive is IDE, too.

I found very good data recovery software (which got back my 35,000 work data files) and the same company makes boot sector repair software. The problem I have is that when I boot up using the fubared drive as a slave, Windows (2000 Pro) won't start as it gives me either a KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT HANDLED error or INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE notice, even in Safe Mode. Obviously, the old drive C is (or was) a system drive, so maybe Windows sees that and gives me the warnings. What I want it to do is to boot up as normal using the new HDD and just leave me with minimal access to the fubared one.

There's no way I'm paying £900 to get a few photos back, so if this project fails the old drive is going in the skip!

Any suggestions?

Nick    

[JamesV6CDX]

As you may know, I had a bit of a situation with my PC the other week. Happily, I retrieved all my work data and reloaded all my program software, so I'm up and running. However, there is quite a bit of data on my old Drive C that I would like to get back (photos, fonts, etc). So, I've decided to set myself the project of recovering what I can.

The new drive is IDE (as it was the weekend and I this was a spare I went ahead and fitted without going down the SATA route). The old drive is IDE, too.

I found very good data recovery software (which got back my 35,000 work data files) and the same company makes boot sector repair software. The problem I have is that when I boot up using the fubared drive as a slave, Windows (2000 Pro) won't start as it gives me either a KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT HANDLED error or INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE notice, even in Safe Mode. Obviously, the old drive C is (or was) a system drive, so maybe Windows sees that and gives me the warnings. What I want it to do is to boot up as normal using the new HDD and just leave me with minimal access to the fubared one.

There's no way I'm paying £900 to get a few photos back, so if this project fails the old drive is going in the skip!

Any suggestions?

Nick    

If you get a BSOD when setting it as a slave, do you get one if you set it as secondary master and plug it into the other ribbon? Are jumper settings correct?

Failing that, I have an IDE to USB converter for HDD's...

If you want, send me the drive, we have tools for this sort of thing, working for an ISP...

[Nickbat]

As you may know, I had a bit of a situation with my PC the other week. Happily, I retrieved all my work data and reloaded all my program software, so I'm up and running. However, there is quite a bit of data on my old Drive C that I would like to get back (photos, fonts, etc). So, I've decided to set myself the project of recovering what I can.

The new drive is IDE (as it was the weekend and I this was a spare I went ahead and fitted without going down the SATA route). The old drive is IDE, too.

I found very good data recovery software (which got back my 35,000 work data files) and the same company makes boot sector repair software. The problem I have is that when I boot up using the fubared drive as a slave, Windows (2000 Pro) won't start as it gives me either a KMODE_EXCEPTION_NOT HANDLED error or INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE notice, even in Safe Mode. Obviously, the old drive C is (or was) a system drive, so maybe Windows sees that and gives me the warnings. What I want it to do is to boot up as normal using the new HDD and just leave me with minimal access to the fubared one.

There's no way I'm paying £900 to get a few photos back, so if this project fails the old drive is going in the skip!

Any suggestions?

Nick    

If you get a BSOD when setting it as a slave, do you get one if you set it as secondary master and plug it into the other ribbon? Are jumper settings correct?

Failing that, I have an IDE to USB converter for HDD's...

If you want, send me the drive, we have tools for this sort of thing, working for an ISP...

You've given me a lot to think about there, James. I have tried playing around with the jumpers, but I need to do it a bit more methodically. As I'm using an IDE rather than SATA connection for the main drive, I'm having to use a PCI card for my secondary ribbon and the BIOS sometimes recognises the fubared drive, but sometimes not. Is a USB/IDE converter readily available (in Maplins, say) as that certainly looks like a route I could go down.

Your kind offer, though, is looking VERY tempting  

I'll have another play with it when I get a free moment (taking little one to tennis lessons know!)

Nick

[JamesV6CDX]

Offer is there if you want, I won't look at any data - all I will see is file/directory names flash by.

I have noticed with windows 2000, even if you disable the secondary IDE bus in the BIOS, the O/S will still PnP an additional drive..

[JamesV6CDX]

Is the drive running FAT32 or NTFS?

Interestingly, I use a linux based system for recovering files from dodgey disks...

[Nickbat]

Is the drive running FAT32 or NTFS?

Interestingly, I use a linux based system for recovering files from dodgey disks...

NTFS, James.

[JamesV6CDX]

Funny enough, I had to do a very simelar thing, on a much bigger scale, for a "large insurance company" the other weekend, after their server died, and it emerged that

1) Their backup drive had not been working for several weeks
2) The muppet who built the server used no RAID !!!

That was a close call.. I hate to think the implications if that data wasn't recovered - joe public has no idea!  

[Kevin Wood]

Is the drive running FAT32 or NTFS?

Interestingly, I use a linux based system for recovering files from dodgey disks...

That's what I'd be inclined to use. Take an image of the drive and then see if you can mount the image, repairing as necessary.

Kevin

[Taxi_Driver]

I hope you created a seperate partition for data on your new drive Nickbat so you wont have this probem next time  

I always create a 20G partition for the OS (C drive) and create another partition (D drive) for the rest of the disk using this for apps/data. This way when the OS screws up, you can happily reformat C and re-install the OS/apps and your data is safe on D drive.  

However doesnt help if you have hardware failure on the disk......but reading your post I dont think is the case here.

[Nickbat]

I hope you created a seperate partition for data on your new drive Nickbat so you wont have this probem next time  

I always create a 20G partition for the OS (C drive) and create another partition (D drive) for the rest of the disk using this for apps/data. This way when the OS screws up, you can happily reformat C and re-install the OS/apps and your data is safe on D drive.  

However doesnt help if you have hardware failure on the disk......but reading your post I dont think is the case here.

I'm waiting on getting second 160Gb HDD for the data, then probably an external 500Gb HDD so I can back up both.  

In the meantime, I've been burning DVDs of my work done.

Am seriously considering James' offer on this one, though. Those pics of the little ones are irreplaceable. Funny thing is, I back up  my data, but didn't really consider pics, they just went on the C drive by default and that's where they stayed.  

[Nickbat]

James,

Just checking the jumpers on the bad HDD and it has options for Device 0 Master, Device 1 Slave, Cable Select or Forcing Device 1 Present.

So, how would I set it as a secondary master and what does Forcing Device 1 Present mean?

[JamesV6CDX]

If it's on it's own ribbon, set it as master

Bear in mind, the more you play around trying (with little hope) of getting the data off.. the drive could be dying further.

Send it to me, I'll see what I can do....

[Nickbat]

PM sent, James.