Hard drive crash

[nerd1965]

A friend who knows nothing about computers asked me to come over and delete files on his hard drive. He said it was almost full. When I got there I saw that the drive was over 99% full, it only had 742k available space left (on a 20 gig). In windows explorer I right clicked on the drive and chose properties. I ran disk cleanup. I selected the recycle bin which had 1.7 gig that would be made available. Starting running the cleanup. In the middle of it the system turned off spontaneously. When I tried rebooting I was informed that the NTOSKRNL.EXE file had been corrupted. I could not restore the disk using an XP bootable version because the machine kept going down every time I had the operating system up for about two minutes.

In went to tiger direct and purchased one of those devices that allows you to set up a hard drive as an external drive on another system using 2 USB ports (1 for power,1 for data). At first this worked and I could get into the disk via another computer. I continued trying to delete files that the owner informed me he did not need. I got the available space up to about 830 meg. Then i got a write error. And the device disappeared from explorer. I tried about three more times by unplugging the usb cables and/or rebooting the system. It recognized it about one other time then explorer no longer recognized it. I have tried at least 20 times on different systems to get esplorer to recognize the external device but to no avail.

Is there anything else I can do to try and save this guys data that he desperately needs?

 

[Ian]

Have you managed to get "chkdsk" running on the drive when it was working? It might be that you need to go to a data recovery firm if you can't even see the drive any more.

If you try booting from it, does it get anywhere at all? Does the BIOS even detect it?

 

[nerd1965]

Have you managed to get "chkdsk" running on the drive when it was working? It might be that you need to go to a data recovery firm if you can't even see the drive any more.

If you try booting from it, does it get anywhere at all? Does the BIOS even detect it?

Bios was detecting when I tried booting from it, but it no longer does recognize it. It seemed to be on a fast downward spiral. Do you think it might actually be the heads on the drive themselves that are going/gone bad? If this is the case is there a way to acess the data with other heads?

 

[Ian]

If it is that damaged I think you'll need to go with a data recovery firm, have you tried inserting it into another PC without using the USB HDD box?

 

[netBooger]

If you are getting write disk errors, then there is a good chance the drive if bad. If your friend doesn't have anything extremely important I would advise trying to re-install on it (if able) and seeing if that works. Otherwise a new drive might be the way to go.

If he does have important stuff he would like to keep off that drive, then this may be a good lesson to him to back up his data. Because taking it to a data recovery firm is NOT cheap and usually isn't worth it.

But if you would like to further troubleshoot the drive then I will need to know what kind of OS he is running and if you are able to get a copy of the OS (the actual Microsoft disk) disk?

 

[nerd1965]

If it is that damaged I think you'll need to go with a data recovery firm, have you tried inserting it into another PC without using the USB HDD box?

No. I have not tried that. I have been in touch with two data recovery companies. One suggested that I don't do anything more with it and just send it to them. If I try what you suggest is there a chance it will destroy data that has not been destrotyed already?

P.S.

Thank you for your help so far.

Richard

 

[nerd1965]

If you are getting write disk errors, then there is a good chance the drive if bad. If your friend doesn't have anything extremely important I would advise trying to re-install on it (if able) and seeing if that works. Otherwise a new drive might be the way to go.

I realize that the drive is bad. He already has another laptop, but he needs data (primarily his outlook express address file, and one excel document) from this drive.

If he does have important stuff he would like to keep off that drive, then this may be a good lesson to him to back up his data. Because taking it to a data recovery firm is NOT cheap and usually isn't worth it.

Oh he already realizes his folly. It took me a couple of days and some other techinical peoples input to make him realize the lesson. But he no longer blames me for the problem.

I think that he would be willing to pay a few thousand dollars for data recovery. He is a marine consultant and his contact list is his outlook express address book. He is loosing much more daily (he claims) by not having this information.

But if you would like to further troubleshoot the drive then I will need to know what kind of OS he is running and if you are able to get a copy of the OS (the actual Microsoft disk) disk?

He is running windows xp. I have a bootable xp disk that I was using to get to the recovery console, but the machine would go down spontaeously after 2 or 3 minutes while I was proceeding.

 

[netBooger]

You can try the below if your system will stay up long enough to replace the NTOSKRNL.exe file.

1. Insert the Microsoft Windows XP CD. Note: If you have a recovery CD or a restore CD and not a Microsoft Windows XP CD it is likely the below steps will not resolve your issue.

2. Reboot the computer, as the computer is starting you should see a message to press any key to boot from the CD. When you see this message press any key.

3. In the Microsoft Windows XP setup menu press the R key to enter the recovery console.

4. Select the operating system you wish to fix, and then enter the administrator password.

5. Type expand d:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32

6. You will then be prompted if you wish to overwrite the file type Y and press enter to overwrite the file.

7. Type exit to reboot the computer.

Also you still might want to try chkdsk as Mr. Cunningham has suggested. But these are only if you wish to continue to try and troubleshoot it. If you are going to send it to a data recovery company then you might want to hold off as they suggested.

 

[nerd1965]

You can try the below if your system will stay up long enough to replace the NTOSKRNL.exe file.

1. Insert the Microsoft Windows XP CD. Note: If you have a recovery CD or a restore CD and not a Microsoft Windows XP CD it is likely the below steps will not resolve your issue.

2. Reboot the computer, as the computer is starting you should see a message to press any key to boot from the CD. When you see this message press any key.

3. In the Microsoft Windows XP setup menu press the R key to enter the recovery console.

4. Select the operating system you wish to fix, and then enter the administrator password.

5. Type expand d:\i386\ntoskrnl.ex_ c:\windows\system32

6. You will then be prompted if you wish to overwrite the file type Y and press enter to overwrite the file.

7. Type exit to reboot the computer.

Also you still might want to try chkdsk as Mr. Cunningham has suggested. But these are only if you wish to continue to try and troubleshoot it. If you are going to send it to a data recovery company then you might want to hold off as they suggested.

Thank you netBooger.

 

[Abarbarian]

You might be able to recover the data with this ,

http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page