How to recover unbootable system.

[elkinm]

This is on a friends laptop. Boot gives a simple disk read error.

Fdisk from a dos boot disk recognizes a NTFS partition but cannot read it obviously.
XP recovery console cannot browse the drive at all and gives an error.
Bart-PE scandisk and file explorer also cannot access the drive.
I tried a windows repair install, and it said it needed to partition and format the disk before installing.

Reading around, I tried Active Partition recovery, which scanned the drive but when it tried using the date and reading the disk it gave me and error saying Sector #0 unreadable or Damaged BOOT sector. So basically it cannot see the files on the partition.

I don't know what drive it is, to try brand name disk checks, the laptop is a Toshiba and the drive is 30GB.

I am not sure what else to try. I could try repartitioning and reinstalling but that would erase all data and make me no better then any other cheap PC doc.

Thank you
elkinm

 

[xtknight]

Try this. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

It's saved my rear end multiple times.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Or try MbrFix

 

[elkinm]

Thanks guys. Running TestDisk now.
It detected the partition but when trying to read files or write date to hard disk it had an error.

Now I am doing a BS rebuild which is taking its sweet time scanning disk sectors and I will leave it overnight.

 

[elkinm]

I finished the scans with Test disk which could not verify the boot sector but could not write the old or new sector.
No writing or access is possible.

I got permission to try to wipe the drive. Windows XP setup was staling so I used FDISK from a Win 98 boot disk to create a new partition. I took a very long time and many passed to verify disk integrity but it stopped eventually.

Then I set it to format the new partition after reboot. It is trying to recover many allocation units. I left it overnight and now it is just over 1000 allocation units on a 30GB hard drive.

Now I think it is very doubtful that a drive can have such severe damage to the data surface and still run at all. On a PC I would think that maybe the cable or connector or motherboard is bad and causing such errors. Can anything like this be done with a laptop or is everything build in to the motherboard?
And it stying a new hard drive the only way to tell if the hard drive or the motherboard is bad.

Thanks

 

[lansalot]

Try using mhdd from www.hddguru.com, it might identify if the problem is truly mechanical or not.

Failing that, there are some nice low-level format tools on that site as well..

 

[savvy]

Repair install?

 

[elkinm]

Originally posted by: lansalot
Try using mhdd from www.hddguru.com, it might identify if the problem is truly mechanical or not.

Failing that, there are some nice low-level format tools on that site as well..

mhdd works quite well. I did a full scan which went much faster then the dos format. It found about 300 bad sectors, mostly toward the beginning of the drive. Some slow sectors were found mostly around bad sections which suggest that they might fail soon.

One question though, I am now doing an erase (low level format). Does the format actually format the drive so I can install windows or will I need another format program as the doss and windows format is way to slow.

As far as a repair install, it failed as the drive was completely unreadable and unwritable with it's original setup so neither a repair or a clean install could get anywhere.

Thanks again.

 

[pcgeek11]

I hate to tell you but you probably need a new disk drive 300 bad sectors etc... spell nothing but trouble.

pcgeek11

 

[ForumMaster]

hate to say this, bu it sounds like your drive hosed. i suggest finding out the manu of the drive and to run the diagnostic tools of the drive manu. it might be able to do a better low-lever format. then again, it will probabbly confirm what i said. just get a new drive.

 

[Lord Evermore]

If a format is having to "recover" anything, then the surface is definitely dying, and it sounds like this one is severely damaged. Formatting doesn't try to recover data clusters, it scans the surface to check for bad sectors before marking them as available in the file allocation table or master file table.

Did your friend drop the laptop or something? It sounds very much like a head crash.

 

[elkinm]

Sorry for not updating for a while but everything changed somewhat.
The erase did not format the drive just erased it.

I did the FAT32 fdisk with no issues in the verifying integrity.
Reboot, format. Formatted perfectly fine, no signs of bad clusters??? What is going on??

Installed windows XP on the FAT32 partition. No problems at all. Installed SP2 all updates and ran a surface test on the disk. No errors.

Installed Norton Utilities 2003, ran surface test, once again no errors.

Big questions. What is going on, where did the bad clusters go? Assuming my scandisks are not the best, is there a good detailed surface test I can do to truly test the surface, without damaging my data that is.

Also, should I move to NTFS? Could the corrupted NTFS been interfering with the recovery as no program could recover the drive even though it definitely seems to be working.

I have seen a format not detect bad clusters, but scandisks had no problems detecting them afterwards, never seen bad clusters actually disappear. I'm stumped.

 

[mzkhadir]

Originally posted by: elkinm
Sorry for not updating for a while but everything changed somewhat.
The erase did not format the drive just erased it.

I did the FAT32 fdisk with no issues in the verifying integrity.
Reboot, format. Formatted perfectly fine, no signs of bad clusters??? What is going on??

Installed windows XP on the FAT32 partition. No problems at all. Installed SP2 all updates and ran a surface test on the disk. No errors.

Installed Norton Utilities 2003, ran surface test, once again no errors.

Big questions. What is going on, where did the bad clusters go? Assuming my scandisks are not the best, is there a good detailed surface test I can do to truly test the surface, without damaging my data that is.

Also, should I move to NTFS? Could the corrupted NTFS been interfering with the recovery as no program could recover the drive even though it definitely seems to be working.

I have seen a format not detect bad clusters, but scandisks had no problems detecting them afterwards, never seen bad clusters actually disappear. I'm stumped.

did you take a look at the event viewer to see what errors it was giving you.

Did it say disk error or something else ?

 

[elkinm]

Originally posted by: mzkhadir

Originally posted by: elkinm
Sorry for not updating for a while but everything changed somewhat.
The erase did not format the drive just erased it.

I did the FAT32 fdisk with no issues in the verifying integrity.
Reboot, format. Formatted perfectly fine, no signs of bad clusters??? What is going on??

Installed windows XP on the FAT32 partition. No problems at all. Installed SP2 all updates and ran a surface test on the disk. No errors.

Installed Norton Utilities 2003, ran surface test, once again no errors.

Big questions. What is going on, where did the bad clusters go? Assuming my scandisks are not the best, is there a good detailed surface test I can do to truly test the surface, without damaging my data that is.

Also, should I move to NTFS? Could the corrupted NTFS been interfering with the recovery as no program could recover the drive even though it definitely seems to be working.

I have seen a format not detect bad clusters, but scandisks had no problems detecting them afterwards, never seen bad clusters actually disappear. I'm stumped.

did you take a look at the event viewer to see what errors it was giving you.

Did it say disk error or something else ?

What do you mean. I have encountered no errors or crashes after installing windows. event viewer only shows some specific services not running which is understandable.

I also did a disk defragmenter and once again no problems.