PC not booting... can the data be recovered?

[Mac Man]

Hi... hoping some PC gurus might help here.

I had a message on start saying 'master boot record error'.

When I tried the recovery disk the recovery process gets only so far and I then got a message 'windows was unable to save all the data for file H:windows/1386/driver cab. The data has been lost. this error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.'

Except there is no way to save this 'file' anywhwere so I have to try and reboot.

Running the recovery again I get a new message 'the section IDA_CREATE_USER_DRIVE_U does not contain a valid dialog template'. And that's as far as it goes.

Am I right in thinking that it's just a sector on start-up that is totally fritzed, and not the whole drive?

Will I be able to recover the data on the drive?

And would you trust PC World to fix it? (My wife has a maintenace contract thing with them so is taking it back tomorrow.)

She has most of her important stuff backed up - but is missing about a weeks worth of order details - something that will take a good few hours to manually input again :-(

Just looking for some reassuring words for her here.

[lynx]

I had a similar problem last year. I installed a new disc and this let Windows 'see' the broken disk which was configured now as the slave and let me read from it. Good luck.

[Mac Man]

Originally Posted by lynx

I had a similar problem last year. I installed a new disc and this let Windows 'see' the broken disk which was configured now as the slave and let me read from it. Good luck.

Thanks Lynx... I was hoping it may work something like this. I've been a Mac User for many many years and have seen the 'sad Mac' face many times. Managed to fix it 99% of the time. Not as clued up on Windows machines though.


Chris

I knackered my BIOS last year, preventing boot up. Took it to a local PC dealer and they put it right in less than 24hrs. Nothing was harmed on the HDD. I'm sure you'll be fine.

[Dom996]

I've had a corrupt OS before with a few clients and if you have the CD, then installing again (overwriting, not fresh install) usually sorts it.

[andrew1810]

Two other options:

1) Install a second copy of Windows in a second directory (WinXP for example), then you will have full access to the old files (programs will need re-installing though as they will be missing dll's)

2) Get a bootable version of linux, access the disk and copy the files to another pc/cd etc.

[Singh400]

Insert your Windows XP CD, boot from it. After it has loaded all the drivers access the Recovery Console by pressing R.

Once in Recovery Console type:

FIXMBR

All done!

You should always backup your important files to a removable drive.

[Pifko]

Look for a Linux OS called 'Knoppix' small and easy to boot with, backup yer data, then format I say.

[JagoPlasma]

no no noooo, dont do what singh said.

i did it beliving it would "fix the mbr" it doesnt, it wipes everything

[Uridium]

Wouldn't trust PC World with my Calculator, let alone my PC!

All they will do is format the disk and re-install XP. they will not look after your data for you at all.

If you can I'd recommend taking the hard disk out and plugging it into a friend's or spare PC as a slave disk to get the data copied off of it before you take it to PC World.

The FixMbr and Fixboot commands in the WinXP recovery console are designed to fix this problem but 95% of the time they just don't work.

It's highly unlikely that just running these commands would delete all your data, it's also highly unlikely that they will actually do anything useful either!

Worth noting tht even if your harddisk isn't faulty at the moment these kind of startup errors are usually caused by suspect sectors on the disk and are usually a sign that the disk is on it's way out, could be worth you just picking up another hard disk, putting the new one in and install WinXP on it with the old one a a slave. Can get your data copied off then.

[JohnG]

For any problems like this I usually advise putting the drive into and external USB caddie and then you can connect it to any other PC to see if you can get at the hard drive.

[The Dude]

As already mentioned, Either a usb caddy, or add the drive as a slave in a second PC... then recover what data you can from the drive.

If you go the slave drive route, there are some drive utils that will help if the data on there is corrupt. I cant remember the name of any free apps, but others here will if you ask.

Uridium's approach gets my vote though.
I'd also buy a new drive for rebuilding the PC.... that one would be going in the door-stop pile if it was mine.

[Nick_UK]

Has anyone ever got a drive to work by putting it in the freezer for a few hours ?

I've done it a few times, and it has never worked for me.

[The Dude]

I've had a few successes with 2.5" drives which were doing the deathwatch beetle routine.... but never with a 3.5" drive.

[KiNeL]

Originally Posted by Chris Lamle

When I tried the recovery disk the recovery process gets only so far and I then got a message 'windows was unable to save all the data for file H:windows/1386/driver cab

I think you may well be screwed already. A recovery CD very often does nothing more than wipe the entire HD putting the PC back to "out of the box" i.e. when you first bought it and switched it on!

I'm also puzzled as to why your PC thinks Windows is on H drive. This is definately not normal.

Just a question; you haven't been playing with Linux have you ?

The safest thing for you to do now, as others have suggested, is take the drive out and somehow get it connected to another PC and copy your important data off BEFORE attempting any further repairs.

PC World?

Let's me put it this way; the only surprising element of the Gary Glitter affair was that PC World managed to fix his laptop...boom boom...!