HardDrive question : lost 5 years of email, 2000s mp3s??

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foo1

If I've no partition but the HD has never been reformatted

what are the chances I can get the data back

the only other wrinkle is that the disk was 'upgraded' from a 'basic'
disk to a 'dynamic' disk

i guess i need to use some 'partition recovery' tool as when i do it
FINDS the lost partition but costs
$150 for the serial code


thanks much
 
foo1 said:
If I've no partition but the HD has never been reformatted

what are the chances I can get the data back
Click to expand...

Excellent. The question is "how much money will it take."
 
If I've no partition but the HD has never been reformatted
Click to expand...

Then the first thing to wonder is why you are in this
situation. I mean, if the drive is dying it may be too
late, or if you can get the drive up, it may be your last
chance and you should not turn the system off or let power
management put the drive to sleep.


what are the chances I can get the data back
Click to expand...

no way to know, not enough info nor a way to comprehensively
diagnose a remote HDD.


the only other wrinkle is that the disk was 'upgraded' from a 'basic'
disk to a 'dynamic' disk
Click to expand...

Ok, don't do that.


i guess i need to use some 'partition recovery' tool as when i do it
FINDS the lost partition but costs
$150 for the serial code
Click to expand...


http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm
 
kony said:
Then the first thing to wonder is why you are in this
situation. I mean, if the drive is dying it may be too
late, or if you can get the drive up, it may be your last
chance and you should not turn the system off or let power
management put the drive to sleep.
Click to expand...

.......I'M IN THIS SITUATION, THE COMPUTER HAS BEEN REBOOTED MANY TIMES,
THAT IS IRRELEVANT
no way to know, not enough info nor a way to comprehensively
diagnose a remote HDD.
Click to expand...
......WELL WHAT ELSE CAN I GIVE TO YOU ?
Ok, don't do that.
Click to expand...

.....PLEASE REREAD IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED, BEEN DONE
http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/uk/welcome.htm
Click to expand...

.....IWANT TO KNOW IF REPLACED THE PARTITION WOUDL HELP AS ITS BEEN
UPGRADED TO A DYNAMIC DISK
 
......I'M IN THIS SITUATION, THE COMPUTER HAS BEEN REBOOTED MANY TIMES,
THAT IS IRRELEVANT
.....WELL WHAT ELSE CAN I GIVE TO YOU ?


....PLEASE REREAD IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED, BEEN DONE

....IWANT TO KNOW IF REPLACED THE PARTITION WOUDL HELP AS ITS BEEN
UPGRADED TO A DYNAMIC DISK
Click to expand...

I suggest burning a copy of the free Ultimate BootCD, MBRtool or
Partition Recovery tool. IIRC, there's a backup copy of the partition
information on the HD. Don't remember how or which events trigger the
partition record backup. Use MBRtool or partition tools on UBCD to read
your partition records. If there's a valid backup for the HD then try to
restore it.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

On UBCD, active@ partition recovery http://www.partition-recovery.com/
 
foo1 said:
......I'M IN THIS SITUATION, THE COMPUTER HAS BEEN REBOOTED MANY TIMES,
THAT IS IRRELEVANT


.....WELL WHAT ELSE CAN I GIVE TO YOU ?


....PLEASE REREAD IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED, BEEN DONE

....IWANT TO KNOW IF REPLACED THE PARTITION WOUDL HELP AS ITS BEEN
UPGRADED TO A DYNAMIC DISK
Click to expand...


Calm the hell down. If you get frustrated, you're liable to do
something that destroys your data. (like repartition the thing...
again) Stop panicking. If you're the type to panic, seek professional
help (to recover your data).

http://www.datamole.com/canidoit.php
http://www.datamole.com/first.php
http://www.datamole.com/diy.php
http://www.datamole.com/hdd.php
 
......I'M IN THIS SITUATION, THE COMPUTER HAS BEEN REBOOTED MANY TIMES,
THAT IS IRRELEVANT
Click to expand...


Your caps lock key is stuck.

.... apparently so was my delete key. We'll have to work on
these keyboard problems.
 
with all due respect i've yet to hear anything useful

so i've run a partition recovery gui tool, which says the partition
exists, and is not really needing to be recovered.
http://www.partition-recovery.com/
however the file structure does not show up in win2k, perhaps because
the disk was upgraded to dynamic?


and yet
when i run UBCD tool it appears it DOES need to be restore, however
none of the tools seems to do that except for a price

i hope i'm not wasting your time, but so far i doubt anyone has
grasped what i'm asking or my situation, if truly interested and want
to help please ask me specific info instead of pointing me to
more HD information that is over my head

and again thanks in advance
 
with all due respect i've yet to hear anything useful

so i've run a partition recovery gui tool, which says the partition
exists, and is not really needing to be recovered.
http://www.partition-recovery.com/
however the file structure does not show up in win2k, perhaps because the
disk was upgraded to dynamic?


and yet
when i run UBCD tool it appears it DOES need to be restore, however none
of the tools seems to do that except for a price

i hope i'm not wasting your time, but so far i doubt anyone has
grasped what i'm asking or my situation, if truly interested and want to
help please ask me specific info instead of pointing me to more HD
information that is over my head

and again thanks in advance
Click to expand...

All I can say is look for the backup copy of the partition. UBCD or
MBRTool should have a menu item that lets you read the contents of the
backup copy of the partition information.
 
foo1 said:
with all due respect i've yet to hear anything useful

so i've run a partition recovery gui tool, which says the partition
exists, and is not really needing to be recovered.
http://www.partition-recovery.com/
however the file structure does not show up in win2k, perhaps because
the disk was upgraded to dynamic?


and yet
when i run UBCD tool it appears it DOES need to be restore, however
none of the tools seems to do that except for a price

i hope i'm not wasting your time, but so far i doubt anyone has
grasped what i'm asking or my situation, if truly interested and want
to help please ask me specific info instead of pointing me to
more HD information that is over my head
Click to expand...
I have recovered ~1000 pics with
http://www.briggsoft.com/dsnoop.htm
It is a 25 run recovery tool,trial,
but no limit on anything but the number of times
you use it, and it only reads the bad drive.
You need a second drive to store the recovered
files on.
I recovered all in two runs with the prog.
 
thx for writing

i'm fairly fluent with computers, this IS homebuilt, but not fluent
enough, to work with the tools in UBCD without risk of ruining the disk
more, by trial and error cause i don't know the terminology/concepts,
nor confidence i can learn them by reading about NTFS and dynamic
disks, which i have tried

the data IS important to me, thats it

i reran the a drive tool which now tells me the partition does exist,
though i'm not sure if it is talking about the dynamic disk partition
or the partition that was there before i upgraded to dynamic disk, OR
are both the same thing? and if so what else must i do to see the
file structure, update the mbr,

cause i DID try to fdisk /mbr, and then i tried the XFDisk tool to
make the large partition 'active' , however after reboot STILL can't
see IT.

I'll try the tool the other poster above suggested BUT
any other reassurance/ information apppreciated

D
 
Clone the disk, block by block. Do whatever you wish with the clone,
that way you can get "do overs" if things go awry. As you will be able
to make another copy and try again.
 
hmm, cool, will try it, thing IS, the data seemed to not be there
before basic was changed to dynamic for some reason, though it should
have been, as only thing that would have been touched would have been
the MBR or partition data

thanks for this
 
this is i'm afraid to mettle and make things worse so here is the
current situation:

1) when i run dskprobe it tells me there is no partition signature
error=55AA
guess the BIOS can find a decent MBR to hand off to ?
2) when i run a partition recovery tool, it tells me that the partition
it find and i want is (good)
but can't recover it as, it overlaps with an existing partition
i'm assuming this is the partition that was created by importing
the HD into disk
management and then converting it to dynamic disk
3) the recovery tool suggests i delete the conflicting/overlapping
partition, but they way they suggest is not active in the
software(maybe because the disk is dynamic)
i COULD delete it from disk management screen , but not
sure that would help
4) i can also rewrite the MBR but then wouldn't it just find the
partition that i don't want anyway

5) IF i convert the dynamic disk partition to basic, i assume it is
STILL the wrong partition, i don't really understand how i can have too
large partitions existing at the same time


SO how to proceed now, cautiously?


thanks again
 
this is i'm afraid to mettle and make things worse so here is the current
situation:

1) when i run dskprobe it tells me there is no partition signature
error=55AA
guess the BIOS can find a decent MBR to hand off to ?
2) when i run a partition recovery tool, it tells me that the partition it
find and i want is (good)
but can't recover it as, it overlaps with an existing partition
i'm assuming this is the partition that was created by importing
the HD into disk
management and then converting it to dynamic disk
3) the recovery tool suggests i delete the conflicting/overlapping
partition, but they way they suggest is not active in the software(maybe
because the disk is dynamic)
i COULD delete it from disk management screen , but not
sure that would help
4) i can also rewrite the MBR but then wouldn't it just find the
partition that i don't want anyway

5) IF i convert the dynamic disk partition to basic, i assume it is STILL
the wrong partition, i don't really understand how i can have too large
partitions existing at the same time


SO how to proceed now, cautiously?
Click to expand...

Apparently it depends on you're configuration.

Take a look at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309044
before you try to recover data.

You might need to purchase a commercial dynamic disk recovery tool.
 
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