Hard-drive corruption question

  • Thread starter Thread starter M Skabialka
  • Start date Start date
M

M Skabialka

I have a hard drive that stopped functioning when other hardware was added
to the system. I ran diagnostics from the manufacturer website which said
nothing was wrong. I have added that drive to three other computers as a
primary or slave, or in an external USB case. Each time the computer will
not boot past the intial windows flag screen, and BSOD shows errors in
ntfs.sys. If I boot to any non-ntfs boot disk (like the diagnostics) the
computer does not crash, but any ntfs disk (including the Windows CD)
crashes with the BSOD. I downloaded an ntfs reader which in a crude
DOS-like format shows that the files are still intact, but I don't know how
to view the file system and replace ntfs.sys without booting to ntfs which
crashes the system.

Is there a utility out there to replace ntfs.sys without booting to ntfs?
The ntfs reader will only copy from NTFS to a FAT partition, so I can't copy
from one ntfs drive to the other in a 2 drive system.
Mich
 
Are you trying to boot from the drive? If so the problem is probably that
the boot sector on the drive is not the correct one for your Systems BIOS
and you will need to run a repair installation using your OS installation
disk or possibly running repair from an F8 boot.
 
M Skabialka said:
I have a hard drive that stopped functioning when other hardware was added
to the system. I ran diagnostics from the manufacturer website which said
nothing was wrong. I have added that drive to three other computers as a
primary or slave, or in an external USB case. Each time the computer will
not boot past the intial windows flag screen, and BSOD shows errors in
ntfs.sys. If I boot to any non-ntfs boot disk (like the diagnostics) the
computer does not crash, but any ntfs disk (including the Windows CD)
crashes with the BSOD. I downloaded an ntfs reader which in a crude
DOS-like format shows that the files are still intact, but I don't know how
to view the file system and replace ntfs.sys without booting to ntfs which
crashes the system.

Is there a utility out there to replace ntfs.sys without booting to ntfs?
The ntfs reader will only copy from NTFS to a FAT partition, so I can't
copy from one ntfs drive to the other in a 2 drive system.
Mich
Click to expand...


Mich...
What, precisely, is your objective here? Can we assume that at this point
you're basically interested in accessing the data on that HDD, copying
whatever data you need or want, after which you can then simply re:format
the disk so that you can subsequently use it as a secondary HDD in one of
your systems? Is that a reasonable/practical objective for you at this time?

We'll assume that the HDD is non-defective based on the results of the HDD
diagnostic utility from the disk's manufacturer. Can we assume you ran the
complete suite of tests including the "long" or detailed version of the
diagnostic utility, not merely the "short" version?

With the "problem" HDD installed as a USB device, but not connected/powered
on, what happens when you boot to your system and *then* connect/power on
the USB external HDD? Does the system then detect the USB device and can you
access the HDD under those circumstances?
Anna
 
Is there a utility out there to replace ntfs.sys without booting to ntfs?
The ntfs reader will only copy from NTFS to a FAT partition, so I can't copy
from one ntfs drive to the other in a 2 drive system.
Mich
Click to expand...

google "enable ntfs write" ....
will give you knoppix.
u need to try it yourself.
 
Harry said:
google "enable ntfs write" ....
will give you knoppix.
u need to try it yourself.
Click to expand...
I can only assume that you have ran only the short/quick test using the
diagnostics from the manufacturer as most of them require write access
to the drive.

In my experience if i have any problems like you have mentioned i would
either boot to a live cd of linux or boot to UBCD (Ultimate Boot CD).
This rules out an OS issue and you can also check the hard drive and the
ntfs filesystem.

To check the hard drive using UBCD there is a nice utility called
Salvation but there are others as well.

Here's a link
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

If you can't access the NTFS partition using Windows i would try a live
cd version of linux or you can install linux on a usb pendrive, i have
found that it can mount pretty much anything you throw at it including
NTFS partitions.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/

Hope this helps.

Comptia A+ Certified
 
You have not posted a complete copy of the Stop Error Report. Please do
so making it clear where the drive is located when the Stop Error report
is generated,

What function did this drive serve before you started your changes? I am
not sure that taking a bootable hard drive from one computer and putting
it in another computer can be expected to boot.. In the second computer
it can only be expected to be accessible for the purpose of working with
data files.

What is the drive make and model? What type of cabling is being used to
connect the drive to the motherboard?

Is the hard drive recognised by the BIOS?


--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
Yes, I am trying to recover data, and since the drive seems OK will then
reformat and reuse the drive.
I ran the long diagnostics test.
I booted a machine with XP on it, then connected the problem drive in an
external bay through USB. I got the Detecting new hardware message, then it
recognized the drive make and model, then the computer shut down suddenly.
 
I have tried booting from the drive, booting a machine with this drive as
the slave, and booting a machine and then connecting this through USB. In
all cases the computer crashes.
F8 booting in safe mode crashes.
Booting from the OS CD and choosing repair crashes.
 
Stop error 0x00000024 on ntfs.sys. This was in a desktop computer with ms
office and the usual programs. I tried booting it in the computer it came
from. All other tests were in another computer. It is a Western Digital
IDE drive and was working for two years before the sudden crash when a new
AGP video card was installed. Yes it is recognized in BIOS.
 
If you remove the all of the "added hardware" you referred to can you get
back to booting your system with just it's original drive? If yes you might
try running checkdisk on the working system
 
I've googled this and seen a lot of articles about knoppix with a bunch of
alien commands (I'm a DOS -> Vista user only)
Where do you get it from, and does it comes with any help on how to use it?
I'm guessing I will create a boot CD and have knoppix running in RAM like
the old MS-DOS boot disk???
Then what?


Is there a utility out there to replace ntfs.sys without booting to ntfs?
The ntfs reader will only copy from NTFS to a FAT partition, so I can't
copy
from one ntfs drive to the other in a 2 drive system.
Mich
Click to expand...

google "enable ntfs write" ....
will give you knoppix.
u need to try it yourself.
 
M said:
I have tried booting from the drive, booting a machine with this drive as
the slave, and booting a machine and then connecting this through USB. In
all cases the computer crashes.
F8 booting in safe mode crashes.
Booting from the OS CD and choosing repair crashes.
Click to expand...

Just to be clear on one point.........did you jumper the problem drive
as "slave" and make sure that the **IDE** boot hard drive was jumpered
as master? Just hooking them up to the same IDE cable doesn't
automatically make one "master" and the other "slave; the jumpers have
to be in the correct position.

A couple of other things you can try too:

If your BIOS supports it....remove the problem drive's name from the
list of "bootable" devices.

Use a partition editor (such as PartEd) to remove the bootable flag on
the problem hard drive.


Hiren's BootCD
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd


SystemRescueCD:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page

***Note: SystemRescueCD is Linux based.
 
I not only removed the AGP video card - I took it back to the store and got
my money back. I tried with the other AGP card, and the onboard video. The
drive still crashes this or any other machine.
I cannot get to a prompt to run chkdsk by any method I can think of.
 
propman said:
Just to be clear on one point.........did you jumper the problem drive as
"slave" and make sure that the **IDE** boot hard drive was jumpered as
master? Just hooking them up to the same IDE cable doesn't automatically
make one "master" and the other "slave; the jumpers have to be in the
correct position.
Click to expand...

I tried both cable select and jumpering master and slave. Tried them on
different IDE cables, as primary master and secondary master.
A couple of other things you can try too:

If your BIOS supports it....remove the problem drive's name from the list
of "bootable" devices.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what you mean by this. If I have no HDD listed as a boot
device, what does this accomplish? Right now I have floppy, then CD-ROM,
then Hard Drive.
Hiren's BootCD
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd
Click to expand...

I'll look at this...
SystemRescueCD:
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
Click to expand...
This site will not open
 
Go to My Computer/right click on the drive/ select properties/ the select
tools/ then select check disk
 
I cannot get any computer to which this drive is attached to boot at all!
They always crash. Therefore I cannot run chkdsk! This is the reason for my
initial post!
 
M said:
I ran the long diagnostics - says the drive is OK.
I looked at http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ - it doesn't list any utilities
for repairing the ntfs.sys file - the NTFS reader wasn't any help - I tried
that already.
Salvation seems to be for DOS, therefore FAT systems.
Click to expand...

Might want to try this:

NTFS4DOS 1.9 (read/write NTFS from DOS)
http://www.free-av.com/en/tools/11/avira_ntfs4dos_personal.html

I've downloaded it and will be trying out later....please let us know of
your experiences with it. :-)


You might also want to take a look at the openSUSE LiveCD:
http://www.opensuse.org/en/
I'm guessing I will create a boot CD and have Linux in RAM like
the old MS-DOS boot disk???
Then what?
Click to expand...

Suggest you jumper problem drive as slave; no other hard drives
installed in system (to keep things simple).

Use one of the LiveCD's to boot the system....then use the file manager
to see if the drive is recognized, plus can be read from and written to.

If these steps are sucessful then you are well on your way to recovering
your data. Please let us know how you make out. :-)
 
Do I understand correctly that you have a computer with only one hard drive
installed and it was working fine unstill you "added some other hardware" to
the system and that you have not been able to even to do a F8 safe mode boot
since even after you removed the "other hardware"?
However, you do get to the F8 screen and then even safe mode fail.
What was the "other hardware" you installed and now have removed?
 
He's already posted all this information in previous messages...if you
really want to help the OP, suggest you read all back messages to
catch-up on topic. :-)
 
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