I've got a harddrive which no longer shows up in Windows. If I attempt to
boot from it or navigate to it using Partition Magic, I am told that it is
unrecognised and needs to be formatted.

Has anyone ever encountered this, where the drive seems to be working, but
the index is erased? If so can anyone recommend any software to salvage data
from a drive in this condition? Thanks.

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 20:19:27 +1000, B. Al. Zeebub read and pondered :

If its a physical hard drive try hooking it up as a slave to another PC
and see if you can view the contents of the disc there. If you have
broadband you can also try downloading Knoppix Linux, which is a complete
OS on a bootable CD and runs independently of the host PC. Using Knoppix
and a Zip or USB drive you can copy files and save data from Windows
*when* it goes belly up. Go here for more info.

http://www.knoppix.net/

If you can't download the free version you can buy a CD. Its also been
included in PCplus magazine (UK) and APC magazine (Aust) recently.
B.

Remove and reseat the cables - replace them if necessary.
Is the drive recognised in the BIOS?


On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 20:19:27 +1000, in
<3f8e6e8c$0$23586$5a62ac22@freenews.iinet.net.au >
Tysha scrawled:

--
Basic computer maintenance
http://uk.geocities.com/personel44/maintenance.html

"B. Al. Zeebub" <b.al.zeebub@666.con> wrote in message
news:uivjb.153218$bo1.72923@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
Yeah that was the basic plan. Hoping that someone might be able to recommend
some salvage software which might assist in viewing whatevers left on the
damaged disk.

Thanks for the suggestion. It wasn't exactly what I was after, but it sounds
like a very useful idea, particularly in situations like mine. I'm
downloading a copy now and will give it a try, hopefully in conjunction with
some decent recovery software. Any more suggestions?

"°Mike°" <ZHNTPDWBLECA@fcnzzbgry.pbz> wrote in message
news:3f98869d.3669478@localhost...
Replaced IDE and power cables - no change in response.

Yep, no sign of a problem in BIOS. As soon as XP tries to boot up, I get a
DISK BOOT FAILURE. Viewing in Windows Setup or via Partition Magic on a
different PC insists the drive is not formatted. Problem was caused after I
hard reset a freeze on my XP (NTFS) P4.

Try GetDataBack for NTFS
http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm


On Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:16:10 +1000, in
<3f8e89e6$0$23601$5a62ac22@freenews.iinet.net.au >
Tysha scrawled:

--
Basic computer maintenance
http://uk.geocities.com/personel44/maintenance.html

Based on personal experience I highly recommend active@:
http://www.partition-recovery.com/partition.htm

You can try a demo version of the program free of charge and it will
show you what it can recover. If you like what you see, pay the $30 for
the full version.

There's no need for a second drive or second computer, all it needs is a
floppy drive to boot from.

Tysha wrote:

I recently had a problem with my hard disk... Was getting the message
"operating system not found" when I tried to boot. I got a copy of SpinRite
(cheap) and ran it as described on the website
(http://grc.com/spinrite.htm). Not 100% sure if this is what you need - but
it seems to fix a wide range of problems. After using this, reboots have
been successful and I've had no problems since.
best of luck, hj

From the website:
"SpinRite prevents mass storage systems from crashing or warns the user of
pending catastrophe. If SpinRite is not used until after a crash, it
skillfully picks up all the pieces, recovers your data, and puts everything
back together again."


______________________
please remove the obvious from my email...
"Tysha" <tysh@tysha.com> wrote in message
news:3f8e6e8c$0$23586$5a62ac22@freenews.iinet.net. au...
: I've got a harddrive which no longer shows up in Windows. If I attempt to
: boot from it or navigate to it using Partition Magic, I am told that it is
: unrecognised and needs to be formatted.
:
: Has anyone ever encountered this, where the drive seems to be working, but
: the index is erased? If so can anyone recommend any software to salvage
data
: from a drive in this condition? Thanks.
:
:

I've owned three different versions of Spinrite beginning with v. 1.2
and have been very happy with the product. It can do miracles with a
damaged hard drive. But it is very slow, and with a price of $89 (about
what you'd pay for an 80 Gig hard drive) it has become a bit of a
boutique item. That's why I recommended the demo version of active@.

hugh jass wrote:

Which Windows? FAT/NTFS? No longer show up in My Computer or Device Manager?

"Tysha" <tysh@tysha.com> wrote in message
news:3f8e6e8c$0$23586$5a62ac22@freenews.iinet.net. au...
| I've got a harddrive which no longer shows up in Windows. If I attempt to
| boot from it or navigate to it using Partition Magic, I am told that it is
| unrecognised and needs to be formatted.
|
| Has anyone ever encountered this, where the drive seems to be working, but
| the index is erased? If so can anyone recommend any software to salvage data
| from a drive in this condition? Thanks.
|
|

"Eric Gisin" <ericg@indisputable.info> wrote in message
news:bmngep01ahu@enews2.newsguy.com...

NTFS. Still shows up in Device Manager (I think), but definately not in My
Computer.