SATA hard drive issue - Help!

Graham_Devon

I have been an IT Tech for about 8 years now, but never seen this!!

Got a computer of someones to fix. When loading windows it would just restart after the initial Windows XP spash screen. Decided to try and repair this, but I can't, because when I load the CD, even though the system tells me the (SATA) hard drive is a 200gb (185gb in one partition), it states it only has 3mb left.

So took it out of the machine which was a nightmare in itself, plugged it into one of my spare machines and used it as a second drive. On the drive is has 3 files, E I and P.

Disk management shows the drive as a 185gb partition, but it's capactiy is 10mb and space left is 3mb.

Anyone have any idea what this is?!?! I have another partition on the drive, recovery, anything I can do with this?

The owner is a musician, has 60gb worth of music on it, and didnt think to back it up, so I'm getting it in the neck (though it's not my problem!) So I can't simply format the drive at this point and start again.

Help!!!!

Graham_Devon

Bit more info, in disk management, it's showing as FAT.

NOT FAT32, or NTFS.

It has been taken out of a Philips Freeline LS1000. Bizzare?!?!

dataclinic

Quite likely to be a filesystem or firmware corruption, very unusual symptoms indeed and not something I have come across in the past... I would advise your customer to speak to a data recovery company

Graham_Devon

That's what I think I'm going to do. Though he's worried as he has !!!!!! on it too! His wife isn't supposed to know, lol.

But anyway, I have tried to use FAT recovery software, but can only see the recovery system partition (FAT32), another partition (NTFS, 39mb). Cannot see what windows shows, which is a FAT partition of 185gb.

Think I'll have to give up on the data and just order a new drive to fix the computer.

notonyournelly_2

Graham ,.. if your pal has got !!!!!! on his drive then his problem is probably caused by something nasty that he has "inherited" by visiting such sites on-line!

My guess is a virus. I have seen this before.

Have you done a virus sweep "outside of Windows"? i.e. using a DOS or Linux boot CD?

What I'd do is to make sure that the disk is clear of any virus, then run something like SpinRite or HDD HDD Regenerator (do a Google & you'll find more info).

A good start is to get a copy of Hirens Boot CD .. this is boots into DOS - its Menu driven & has a plethora of great tools. Again do a Google. There are many sites around where you can get this stuff, but I am not allowed to mention them here! (Incl on Hirens Boot CD are the proggies I mentioned above)

Hope this helps

NOYN

CalvadosJnr

Graham_Devon wrote: »

Bit more info, in disk management, it's showing as FAT.

NOT FAT32, or NTFS.

It has been taken out of a Philips Freeline LS1000. Bizzare?!?!

had a similar problem with a friends pc when i installed beos for him

you could try remounting the partitions as Fat32 but i would reccommend this as a last resort

... i used a prog called disktools.exe which allowed me to remount many different file systems

CalvadosJnr

saying that if your mate has !!!!!! on his pc its more than likely a virus

Chippy_Minton

Another couple of recovery tools you could try:

UBCD4Win http://www.ubcd4win.com/ (nice familiar Windows GUI but you need an XP CD + SP2 to build it)

and Knoppix http://www.knoppix.org/

Graham_Devon

Ahh hes not a mate, never met him, the girlfriend is though.

I have given up now, put the computer back together minus hard drive, up to him what he does from here. Will reccomend a data recovery place, if he wants to pay for that. He's very tight and won't pay for anything (much to his girlfriends embarrasment when he tried to get me to do it for nothing, including going to their house to pick it up!).

So purely as he was like that, I'm not going any further as he's already told her 'he could do it for free couldnt he'.

I'm a business, not a charity case. Not like he hasn't got money either! So I have diagnosed the problem, can re-built their pc with a new hard drive, if they want me to and can get a company to recover data, if he wants me to. Doubt he will want to pay for the hard drive tbh.