can't access hard disk on hp w/restore partition

  • Thread starter Thread starter bell-lady
  • Start date Start date
B

bell-lady

When booting normally, black screen, then stops with unable to locate
needed .dll files...

When booting into recovery mode without disks (don't have any) (F10 on
blue screen), it says the only thing it can do is wipe it out and
start over. Same result when I boot from another XP CD. I wanted non-
destructive as I haven't been able yet to get to My Documents to save
stuff off.

Using boot diskette and fdisk, I see 2 partitions on hard drive,
recover and NTFS type which I assume is the actual C: drive.

from A: I can do DIR on C: and see files, but nothing like what should
be on a C: drive, except a few expected ones. No subdirs except I386.

I ran scandisk and thorough scandisk on C: while booted from A:; it
found one lost cluster and made a small file of it (file0001); nothing
like enough to be all of My Documents.

I hooked the hard drive up as a secondary on another PC, ran McAFee on
it and it came out clean, no complaints at all. Didn't look like it
scanned anything but I386 below the top-level directory either.

Does this necessarily mean My Documents truly is gone gone? and email
and etc.? I'm going to try putting it in the freezer and see if that
helps (it has before, but not usually when I could see anything at
all).

Suggestions welcomed at this point.

If all is lost, I guess I need to re-order restore CDs to at least get
the drivers and paid-for software back again? If I just do a format
on C: would the restore partion possibly still be able to work then,
and restore as it should, without the CDs? Guess I could try..

But I'd like a 2nd opiinion....is there ANY way to get to My Documents
data before formatting or fdisking?

Ann in PA
 
When booting normally, black screen, then stops with unable to locate
needed .dll files...

When booting into recovery mode without disks (don't have any) (F10 on
blue screen), it says the only thing it can do is wipe it out and
start over. Same result when I boot from another XP CD. I wanted non-
destructive as I haven't been able yet to get to My Documents to save
stuff off.

Using boot diskette and fdisk, I see 2 partitions on hard drive,
recover and NTFS type which I assume is the actual C: drive.

from A: I can do DIR on C: and see files, but nothing like what should
be on a C: drive, except a few expected ones. No subdirs except I386.

I ran scandisk and thorough scandisk on C: while booted from A:; it
found one lost cluster and made a small file of it (file0001); nothing
like enough to be all of My Documents.

I hooked the hard drive up as a secondary on another PC, ran McAFee on
it and it came out clean, no complaints at all. Didn't look like it
scanned anything but I386 below the top-level directory either.

Does this necessarily mean My Documents truly is gone gone? and email
and etc.? I'm going to try putting it in the freezer and see if that
helps (it has before, but not usually when I could see anything at
all).

Suggestions welcomed at this point.

If all is lost, I guess I need to re-order restore CDs to at least get
the drivers and paid-for software back again? If I just do a format
on C: would the restore partion possibly still be able to work then,
and restore as it should, without the CDs? Guess I could try..

But I'd like a 2nd opiinion....is there ANY way to get to My Documents
data before formatting or fdisking?

Ann in PA
Click to expand...

I forgot to mention that I get no different results in safe mode,
still says cannot find needed .dll files. Also, when I say 'My
Documents' above, I of course men Documents and SEttings/loginname/My
Documents. I cannot see any Documents and Settings folder, or even a
Program Files folder on C:

Ann in PA
 
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