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Hard drive on XP but I've lost my data!

kaaloo
kaaloo Posts: 346 Forumite
in Techie Stuff
Help
!
Ive got a spare PC which runs xp. Its ancient but has loads of data on it.

Something happened causing the PC to not recognise the Hard Drive - I turn it on and it just says something like boot error.

Ive checked the bios and its there but it not showing any data and I cant start it in safe mode etc

I put the HD as a slave on my other pc and it wont show up or allow me access it in anyway.

Any ideas on how I can recover the data? its very important!!
Bismillah

Comments

  • Stompa
    Stompa Posts: 8,392 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    kaaloo wrote: »
    Any ideas on how I can recover the data? its very important!!

    But you do have a backup, don't you?
    Stompa
  • superscaper
    superscaper Posts: 13,369 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Connect the hard drive to a spare IDE slot on a working pc and boot up as normal with that pc and copy everything from the "extra" hard drive. Any other method, including repairing windows has risk of losing date and/or is extremely expensive.
    "She is quite the oddball. Did you notice how she didn't even get excited when she saw this original ZX-81?"
    Moss
  • superscaper
    superscaper Posts: 13,369 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Stompa wrote: »
    But you do have a backup, don't you?

    Makes me wonder why I bothered with the sticky really.
    "She is quite the oddball. Did you notice how she didn't even get excited when she saw this original ZX-81?"
    Moss
  • fwor
    fwor Posts: 6,954 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Here's something that may help:

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/systemrescuecd/

    It's based on Open Source s/w, so it should be free of malware.

    I've used it successfully several times.

    It's based on a "live CD" version of Linux, but it's not too hard to get to grips with even if you don't have any experience of that OS.

    Once it boots up from the CD you need to type "startx" at the command line to get a Windows-like user interface, and then use the Testdisk utility, which should find any partitions and rebuild your Master Boot Record so that you can access them again - provided the disk is not too badly damaged.
  • totalsolutions
    totalsolutions Posts: 3,110 Forumite
    A very good utility is Spinrite from Steve Gibson at www.grc.com. There is a small charge for it but it can recover data or repair the drive.

    However does it spin up? What is the error message? Old Drives can get stuck the bearings/oil need warming up, this is done in a warm oven at 40degC
    The drive may have a user account on it and you need to log on as administrator and change the security attributes
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